A more excellant way

William Faulkner's awarded the Noble Prize

for literature in 1949

I was there, "sort of". I recall his speech. The sound of his voice. His voice really adds to his message by the way. It was a very interesting message.

I heard his voice on tape. I read his message in several places. It is one of those listed in the book, Worlds Greatest Speeches. I made some comments about that book in my blog yesterday. Part of what he said that got my attention:

"I believe that man will not merely endure: he will prevail. He is immortal, not becasue he alone among the creatures has an inexhaustible voice, but because he has a soul, a spirit capable of compassion and sacrifice and endurance. The poet's, the writers, duty is to write about these things. It is his privilege to help man endure by lifting his heart, by reminding him of the courage and honor and hope and pride and compassion and pity and sacrifice which have been the glory of his past. The poets voice need not merely be the record of man, it can be one of the props, the pillars to help him endure and prevail"



One of my favorite books, in my top 5

Pure In Heart

Faulkner suggested that man had a soul and a spirit and that the best motive for writer or poet was to lift his fellow man's heart. Dallin Oaks writes a lot about the heart in his book and writes about "motive".

Our individual service and efforts to help each other, Dallin Oaks writes, is of most value when it is unconerned with self and heedless of personal advantage. Paul in Corinthians called Charity " a more excellant way".

Red Earth

Poems of New Mexico

The Preface of this book quotes a well know New Mexico author. Tony Hillerman says, "and tough as it is to prove, there does seem to be somthing about New Mexico which not only attracts creative people but stimulates their creativity".

Perhaps creativity as well as our better motives comes from within

Resolve: Tommorrow put some more personal pictures on this blog

Actions, Heart, and belief

Red Jacket

Red Jacket was a great Indian Chief and warrior and he is remembered for this speech.

"A council of Chiefs, of Six Indian Nations, where gathered together to meet with, among other white men, a white Missionary. After the missionary ha delivered his message of Christianity to them the Chief responded saying:

" It was the will of the Great Spirit that we should met together this day. You were sent to instruct us on how to worship the Great Spirit agreeable to his mind andyou have told us if we do not take hold of the religion which you white people teach we shall be unhappy hereafter. You say that you are right and we are lost."

Red Jacket concluded saying, "Brother we are told that you have also been preaching to the white people in this place. These people are our neighbors. We are aquainted with them. We will wait a little while and see what effect your preaching has upon them. lf we find that it does them good, makes them honest and disposed to not cheat Indians, we will consider again what you have said.

Key to understanding the messge

Actions do speak louder than words.

Red Jacket could have just judged them by measuring what they said against what they already knew. He could have concluded that these missionaries were less than religous since they seemed so different.

Not unlike when one call the other "not a Christian" because they only see what they know already.

Red Clouds speech has survived many years.

Wonder how Red Jacket's neighbors did with their teachings. The heart is reflected in actions.

Be on my side, ok?

In Lincolns greatest speech, in my opinion, he said about war:

"both read the same bible and pray to the same God and each involkes his aid against the other"


In looking at my list of favorite books I find "War and Peace" on the list. Why is a good question. Maybe it was just good to see Napaloen get beat. Maybe it was good to read the story of the war so well wraped around a good love story. Young mans first love's heart is broken. He goes to war is wounded and comes back and dies in her arms. The French take Moscow but accomplish nothing. (there is a lesson by the way) They turn to return and as they go home and the weather beats them.

Not on either side

Lincoln seemed to catch part of the irony. Even so are lesson's from the wars and insights from famous men like Lincoln of value for fighting wars or is our life really a war that that we need to take those lesssons for?

We believe spirtually that there is a war going on between good and evil and that as we live out our daily lives we are engaged in it. From that knowledge we learn that we are not neutral. We are in a personal war.



So the question then really is which side is God on. In this book the French beat the Russian's but the weather beat the French. Then too what difference did it make. Whose side was good on.

The lesson of war can apply to making us better

In War and Peace and in most war stories you see people defeated by being distracted, decoyed, lured, flattered, enticed, and by being power hungry. All of these conditions happen to us in our daily lives.

We lose track of what good is and what evil is for all the same reasons.

The earth and everything in it

13 Marathons


Over about 24 years or so I ran 13 Marathons. The Saint George 12 times and then the Desert News once. My fastest time was my first at 4:07. Kind of like Golf, my best game ever was my first at about 85 and the good news on that is that it was for 18 holes not 9. Anyway running has had a hold on me for a long time. My friend Jan and I put in many many years logging in more than 1000 miles a year and we did a lot more some years. Maybe we ran around the world together. If he is reading this he can correct me if I am wrong. It is hard looking back to explain how much that time meant and how strong a hold it had on me. I still do anywhere from 8 to 15 miles a week but it isn't as fast and a lot is different. Some of it is walking time with Kathy and that really helps. Our time walking is a favorite time.

Ran 22 miles once to find ourselves erased from the picture

I hope I don't get in trouble for posting this but one time my friend and I ran from the mouth of Little Cottonwood Canyon where the granite for the Salt Lake Temple was found and taken downtown to the Temple by the early pioneers. We ran with about 20 ladies from the neighborhood. A picture was taken when we arrived at the Temple since it was along the very route that the granite had been hauled by wagons that we ran. The picture hit the paper. My friend and I had been air brushed out. I guess the story ran better being all women.


I found that I could clear my thinking on a long run.



No question about what a runners high is. I feel one coming on just writing this. Running in the hot sun, or rain, or snow or dark all sound good.

This book of poems has Rudyard Kiplings poem "If" in it. I like that poem but as much as anything for capturing one thought. That thought is in the last verse. I will just list that verse here.

IF

If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue

Or walk with Kings-nor lose the common touch,

If neither foes nor loving freinds can hurt you

If all men count with you, but none too much.

Wtih sixty seconds worth of distance run,

Yours is the Earth and everything that's in it.

And-which is more- you'll be a Man, my son!

Awake, Thinking, and not French

"I actually like questions like that"

I think that is me in the bed, now that I

think about it, and of course right there on

the bed is my good old dog Skipper.

Stendndhal wrote a novel called the

Red and Black. Interesting how the cast system in France is so clear cut and this novel uses the Catholic Church to show just that.

The story in the novel just tells you how stuck people are. It is a good novel to read before seeing

Les Miserables. Interesting to me the very words

The Red and the Black have a interesting place in both.

Freedom seems to come from France maybe more than from England. Interesting how much it took to free the French from the cast system.

Favorite songs from this play.

I dreamed a dream, One more day, Do you hear the people sing, Red and Black

I grew up accross the street from a Catholic school and church. I found it interesting and have made a practice over the years to look into a lot of Catholic Churches around the world. I have been in the Vatican, and then Catholic churches in Mexico, Korea, Japan, London, Paris, as welll as many in the US. I am note sure why except that have found them interesting.

Stendhal is a author I have enjoyed. He seems to like to write about love. The book Red and Black is a novel that very much so deals with love. His main character has used his church to get gain and it is a good insight into a world that the Catholic church has had a huge impact on. This character has a real desire for personal greatness. He also seems to have a big impact on women. The story line shows in a day to day life sort of way ideas and thought evolved in France.

It many ways it shows that people really did suffer because the

really started to think deeper.

Paris, Pocatello, London and me

You can't see the Bannock Hotel

because this is a picture that is looking

South from the Hotel taken many years ago.

If you go back in my blogs a ways you will see a picutre of the 1st ward chapel. It was across the street to the North and West from this hotel. I learned a lot as a young man growing up in this hotel. I learned that you could skip out of church and to sit at the counter in the coffee shop and have a soda pop. I learned that you could get to the top floor, 12th maybe, and no one would catch you. Maybe as much as any one thing this Hotel helped me to understand why even though we were in Southeastern Idaho that we were "city kids". It may not hold a candle to big cities but it was not a farm.

Pocatello Idaho seemed like a city when I grew up. Today it seems far from what I have known as cities. I remembered this hotel again in later years when I read a book by George Orwell. It was called "Down and Out in Paris and London. The plot was to a large degree set in a hotel. First I was interested because it was about people who workedin foodservice. Orwell found the Hotel a perfect tool to show the "cast system" that people found themselves in while working in these big hotels. It really showed the down and out and how poverty was a trap and work didn't help that much if you were stuck in the cast system.

Underpass

I guess the fact that Pocatello had a big Hotel, a culture that existed by the tracks, and an underpass, makes it sound like a city. This underpass just reminded me of Pocatello. I spent time by the tracks, under underpasses catching pigeons and of course in and out of a Hotel. All times that perhaps I was less supervised than I should have been.

I learned about the "cast system" of Hotels described in the book

but I may have learned it first hand in earlier years at the Hotel Bannock. Years past. I grew up some. I went on to college. I remember a boy I knew in grade school and junior high. I remember going to his house by the tracks. We were good freinds in school. His first job was at the Bannock Hotel. Mine was in a delivery truck working for a wholesale food company while going to college. We often sent deliveries to the hotel. On day I was pushing a hand truck in the back door and my old friend from years before was hauling a trash can of slop out the same door. We met and hardly said a word to each other. He was wearing a grey uniform and I had just put a delivery apron on over my school cloths from earlier that day. To me it seemed as though it was my friend who didn't want to speak. I don't know what he thought. I saw that scene in George Orwells book played in a variety of ways. The book called it a "cast sytem". I just remember my friend who seemed to have been lost to our earlier years. I guess even in a little town in Southeastern Idaho people get trapped in a job for probably the wrong reasons.

I have been to Paris, and London and Pocatello. I would enjoy going back to all of them.

Looking up, expressing wisdom, and Aeschylus

It isn't hard to find some favorite things about New Mexico. Going to the Flea Market is one of them. My Dad would be proud of me. I never really understood that he might have been going to the garage sales, as he often did, just because he enjoyed it. Kathy and I like to just walk and look at the stuff. The last time we went I saw a Spanish English dictonary, pocket style, for a $1 and I just decided to go back and get it. I am not sure but someday learning to speak and understand another language is on my list of "to do's". So I went back. Kathy followed. By doing so she re looked at, and talked herself into buying, a quilt that is really neat. So there you go....................... Random Actions, bring about Specifc "Stuff".


I have refered to this as the "flea circus" but as the sign plainly shows it is indeed a "market".








It may not be a surprise that I found this hat at the market.






Today a guy about my age, who I have a great deal of respect for, and in fact I think he reads this blog sometimes, mentioned that he figured he falls down about three times a year becuase he likes to look at the sky when he is out walking. You would have to live here to understand why someone would do this. It really is a interesting feature of this part of the world. Now my friend is a scientist by work day, but he says he is a part time philosopher and physicist.



Running, Reading and some wRiting are my 3 R's. Course they are not all R's. Anyway New Mexico is a great place to go out and run, and think about a lot, or think about nothing. This red on blue scene is just up the street.







I like this book of best loved poems. In it Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis is quoted as saying,

"Once you can express yourself you can tell the world what you want from it"

Caroline Kennedy says of her mother that one of the greatest gifts she received form her was her love of literature and language.

One poem that is in this book was also quoted by Robert Kennedy at a gathering of blacks the day that Martin Luthur King died. I remeber that day and I remember listening on TV when he quoted this. When John Kennedy was shot I was in high school. I was a senior and it came over the intercon as an announcement. When Robert Kennedy was shot Kathy and I were in California on vacation. I remember when Robert Kennedy came to the ISU Gym and spoke. I still remember his talk and his comments. I have thought of these words that he quoted on other occasions and find them of value.


Aeschylus


"even in our sleep, pain which cannot forget falls drop by drop upon the heart, until, in our own despair, against our will, comes wisdom through the awful grace of God."

What it is, "Figuratively"

"tommorrow I plan to just post some personal pictures. Don't know if anyone really reads this but I figure I might as well"

Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis wrote about

"Literature" that "Once you can express yourself you can tell the world what you want from it"

The book "How to read a poem" suggests that what happens between the poet and the reader is dependant on "figurative language". Figures of speech, figures of thought. One of the main approaches to this being the metaphor.

Metaphor says one thing meaning but means something else.

Poetry is made of metaphor

Perhaps this fence could be a poem?

This is a picture of a fence I often see on my runs. It is so different from what I had seen of fences before New Mexico.

Dirt, stucco, natural wood and sky stand out as I look at it. The wood seems so "in place" and the uneven top seems to be needed.

In some ways even pictures seem to be poetic.

This picture of this fence has a message, for me.

Caroline points out that all the changes in the world, for good or evil,

were first brought about by words.

The power of verse is derived from an

indefinable harmony between

"what it says, and what it is"






In Caroline Kennedy's book about her mothers best loved poems she among many others listed this POEM below.

Psalm of David

The LORD is my shepherd; I shall not want

He maketh me to lie down in green pastures;

he leadeth me beside still waters.

He restoreth my soul; he leadeth me in the paths of

righteousness for his name's sake.

Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of

death, I will fear no evil; for thou are with me;

thy rod and thy staff they comfort me.

Thou preparest a table before me in the presence of mine

enemies; thou anointest my head with oil; my cup runneth over.

Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life: and I will dwell in the house of the LORD for ever.

Eleswhere I find myself recreated the same but different

Shakespeare is considered the most orignal writer we have every known. Harold Bloom is a Professor at yale who has written a lot of books. I have read a lot of his books and find him to be interesting and at times a little frustrating.

His thoughts about Shakespeare cover a lot of ways of looking at this author. He says his greatest originality is in the representation of character. He says that no other writer has ever had anything like Shakespeare's resources of language. He adds:

The desire to write greatly is

the desire to be "Elsewhere"

This scene from Hamlet was so interesting. For some reason Shakespeare works and word are good both as a play and to read. I mostly prefer the plays. Cedar City Utah has a Shakespeare Festival every summer and that is as good as it gets I think.

Be thou a spirit of health or a goblin damn’d

Bring with thee airs from heaven or blasts from hell,

Be thy interests wicked or charitable

(Act I, Scene IV, Lines 40-43).

Language for a book or a play and

literature, according to Bloom, is not merely "language"; it is also the "will to figuration"

Both Stephen King and Harold Bloom wrote about writing as building on past experiences (from memory) but adding from imagination. Becoming different from oneself. Something tied to ones own originality but resulting in something different.

Something Elsewhere

( Bloom finds that Shakespeare's originality in the whole of the history of philosophy is comparable to none else)

Whether that conclusion is "wicked or charitable" depends on what else you belive in, I would suggest.

memory reflected without unnecesary words

Is Memory Intellegence?

I found this arrangement of color in a labeled memory? Interesting to try to see why this picutre is symbolic of memory.

I looked in a book about "Symbolism" and found that on the cover it had something that looked like this picutre only with different colors. Then again it looked like a picture in space.

The book suggested that colors can be symbolic. Green being a standard symbol of life. Blue, which is in the center of the green, would represent heavenly or celestial, maybe even spirtual. So maybe we find memory represented by these colors as well as this image?

Stephen King in his book on Writing says that his earliest

memory is of imagining.

The symbolic picture of memory has a core focus point or center.

For Stephen King the core, he claims, is mixed with events but also with imagined images. All remembered but then developed into stories.

Apparently for King memories do not need to be specific.

In fact it seems like he is ok if they are just

"Specific Random Thoughts".

King in his forward qutoes a well know book that writers seem to have all read. In Elements of Style, he says, in the chapter titled "Principles of Composition":

Omit needless words.

In the book on symbolism it suggested that gold reflected wisdom.

The picture might then be seen as a life or spirit surrounded by learned wisdom representing memory.

Of course the "picture" omits needless words.

aware of the strength of the pack brings superstars

Wind River Wyoming

It may have been about 10 years ago give or take a couple that this could have been a picture I would have taken. Near the top of a loop in Wind River Wyoming is a basin where we camped. Actually we were just over the hill looking back on these peaks. We had a bunch of young men, son Mike included, and we spent several days hiking to this spot. Our hero Pat, neighbor and guide for all those on this trip camped their two. We had tents like this. That indeed could have been me looking out of our small tent. The night we camped here our neighbor and hero Pat got up a few hours early to go climb the front of these peaks. He made it back in time for us to go on on our hike that day. We hiked each day for about a week.

We didn't worry about

running into a Wolf

We did see bear tracks each day. Lou Holtz wrote a book, "Winning every Day". I remember the book when I see wolf packs for this quote:

"the strenght of the pack was in the wolf

and the strenth of the wolf was in the pack"

It does indeed make a differnce who you assoicate with. Learning to work together is important.

Maybe for Maya Angelou her life was more of alone that part of a support group. She recalls in many of her books her life growing up as a young black girl. She struggles but as she recalls she seems to show the growth she gained and does so with poetry. I like this quote of hers in the book:

"without willing it I had gone form being ignorant of being ignorant to being aware of being aware"

Maybe Lou Holtz is telling us that he is very aware that he is not ignorant..............................................

Lou Holtz takes his football and thoughts about wolf packs to a conclusion by making a statement about the team:

For him this wolf pack and the strenght of the the

individuals and the pack mean:

"you don't need a superstar performance on your team just get everyone to contribute their best effort"

Guess it is ok that Lou is a Superstar

life unexpected in common hours

A book titled "The Spell of New Mexico"

This book caught my attention. The state does have a spell of sorts. The lights of the rainbow just seem different. The reds and the blues are so strong. We often walk on Saturdays and the sky is something that never fails to get our attention






"New Mexico is a state which has the East on both sides of it, and much of the West on the east of it. The presence of California on the other side, with only our close sister state Arizona between, is what puts us in the posititon of having the East on both sides; for Californians in outlook, speech, habits, and in their less effulgent forms of raiment, are definitely Easterners.

As to a large part of the West being to the east of us, I have reference to the sovereign state of Texas. " These thoughts come from the book, the spell of New Mexico.




Why write a blog about New Mexico?

Well were here.



Thoreau had a couple of things to say that I think of when I look at the New Mexico sky, and the colors of the land.

"Only that day dawns to which we are awake"

&

" If one advances confidently in the direction of his dreams, and endeavors to live the life which he has imagined, he will meet with a success unexpected

in common hours"

These days and years in New Mexico have indeed been unexpected in my common hours.

Rather talk to the author than read..................

A habit I had over the years was when I went on vacation is that I would buy a dozen magazines. My rule was to find magazines about things that I had no interest in. This was not hard since there are so many different magazines.

There is a great deal of difference between an eager man who wants to read a book and a tired man who wants a book to read.

Quote by G.K. Chesterton

Vacations and magazines were really for me "a tired man looking for something to read". That is why finding something that I had no interest in worked. It was new. It was something I had not looked at before? It did the work for me. It held my interest

For years I included in my stack of magazines one on Photography. Today I find that Kathy really likes Photography. I will no longer be able to pick those magazines. They no longer qualify. Today since she really likes it. I am now interested in learning more and being able to share with her.

Of course she just shared one of her recent creations with me. This collection of photo's from our trip to the New Mexico State Fair last Saturday are spectacular.

Magaiznes are enjoyable but books seem to have more to say.

Books are a medium because they are neither rare or well done

quote by Gore Vidal

I am not sure why I bothered t o quote Gore Vidal. I have read some of his work and I can tell you that his work is for sure neither rare or well done. Likewise it is far from a medium for anything.


Good Books are great. Notice the black and white picture. Darkness is surrounded by light while reading. The darkness shows thought.

Did I mention that this was me a few years back in this picture.



Reading about Reading and about other books works

It is an anwer to the need:

'Rather talk to the author than read"

Abraham, Maya and Me

Eyes are a representation of light and

knowledge. These seem to be full of knowledge.

They seem to reflect the very spirit of a person.

Why then do some eyes reflect more knowledge than others?

It is Sunday. A good day to think about light and knowledge and the spirit of man. A good day to think about being better than we are. A good day to try to think about "good men". Some men just deserve to be our hero's. My Dad. My Grandfathers are hero's. When I remember my Grandfather Jones I remember his deep set eyes. The years that I remember him he was blind but his face was a lot like Lincoln's face. He to me looked a little like Lincoln.

I have been to the Lincoln memorial a few times. Each time I go I stand and look at his face and his eyes. Then I turn to the right and read what is written into the wall. His Second Inaugural address is considered by many people his greatest speech. The speech has so much to think about but one part I am impressed with is this:

"both read the same Bible, and pray to the same God; and each

invokes His aid against the other. It may seem strange that any men

should dare to ask a just God's assistance in wringing their bread

from the sweat of other men's faces; but let us judge not that we be not

judged. The prayers of both could not be answered' that of

neither has been answereed fully. "

Within this speech, especially in the words above, I think Lincoln makes a comment that explains a lot. He may have been judging the thoughts and intents of those who used or misused the Bible for partisan purposes. However I think he wasn't just affirming that statement in what he said but in effect interrogating those that listened. The sentence "and each invokes His aid against the other" is really a question about the reality of the human condition.

The question still hold true. Politician's continue go to war in the name of "right". Then since right is on their side the end justifys the means. Polarization is what happens when both sides begin to look like each other and both claim God is on their side.

But then it is just Sunday and I was just thinking about my Grandfather and how to me he looked liked Lincoln. Then too I was just looking inside myself for some thoughts for this blog. I am not sure that the blog gets read much but then if it is just a time that I am left with my own thoughts some, that is fine. Then that reminds me of a thought by Maya Angelou.

Maya Angelou's book "Even the Stars look Lonesome" builds off of her own youth and in some ways, if you have read her many other books, is predicatable. She suggests that children be taught that solutide can be a much desired condition. She suggests that it is not only acceptable to be alone but in fact it should be wished for sometimes. She points out that it is in these moments that we learn to talk to ourselves. In the silence we listen to ourselves. The we ask questions of ourselves. We describe ourselves to ourselves.

Writing a blog leaves one alone with their thoughts.