Wendell Berry on faith

Fearnside: You’re a Christian.

Berry: I’m a subscriber to the Gospels; you could put it that way.

Fearnside: You strike me as being both devout and skeptical; firm in your faith, yet willing to question it. Do you see skepticism as something that nurtures your faith?

Berry: Faith implies skepticism. It implies doubt. Faith is not knowledge. It’s not the result of an empirical study. So I would think that people of faith would always be involved in some kind of maintenance to shore it up. Sometimes it’s easy to have faith, and sometimes it isn’t. Maybe if you’re in a monastery it’s easier, because everything there is established for the purpose of preserving your faith. The world, as it operates today, isn’t made to preserve it.

From Sun magazine interview.
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Something to think about

Blowback: The Costs and Consequences of American Empire

Chalmers Johnson summarized the intent of Blowback in the final chapter of Nemesis.

"In Blowback, I set out to explain why we are hated around the world. The concept "blowback" does not just mean retaliation for things our government has done to and in foreign countries. It refers to retaliation for the numerous illegal operations we have carried out abroad that were kept totally secret from the American public. This means that when the retaliation comes – as it did so spectacularly on September 11, 2001 – the American public is unable to put the events in context. So they tend to support acts intended to lash out against the perpetrators, thereby most commonly preparing the ground for yet another cycle of blowback. In the first book in this trilogy, I tried to provide some of the historical background for understanding the dilemmas we as a nation confront today, although I focused more on Asia – the area of my academic training – than on the Middle East."^[10]

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Obama meets the Pope

After the meeting between President Obama and the pope, there was a press conference where the President made a distinction between his work as a political leader and the pope's as a moral authority.  "His job is a little more elevated.  We're down on the ground dealing with the often profane, and he's dealing with higher powers."
Such cheap patronizing.  Such a shallow superficial speaker.  This President, like his predecessor, is an embarassment.
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On my mind today

Why can't I buy a car that doesn't have a computer in it?
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A pilgrim's regress

What little he may have accomplished in life was largely a failure to avoid it.
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Silence

I love silence.
I hear so much.
No need to talk.
Eyes speak and listen.
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Haiku Shadows

Shadows crawl over
the lawn searching the grass
for fugitive light.
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