A Flock of Bells...

A flock of bells takes the air

and you come to me, out of nowhere

and I smile, knowing you'll visit me

always, that this is how it will be

till the last thread of an island

slips through a bell-ringer's hands

and they put me in the listening earth.

--Paul Henry

Heavenly Devil

Paid a visit to the Georgia Aquarium in Atlanta, as far as I know, the only aquarium in the U.S. housing giant Manta rays. Though often labeled the "devil ray," the creature is truly divine.

Five Stars for Aristotle

I've pretty much stopped reading or listening to "professional" critics when it comes to evaluating books and movies.  These days the ratings of readers and viewers (e.g. "stars" on Amazon or Netflix) are far more reliable indicators of quality and entertainment value.  As the great classicist Peter Jones points out, even old Aristotle would have agreed: 

"Aristotle himself (384-322 bc) saw some virtue in mass decision-making. He argued that one of the things that could be said for real democracy was that the more people who had a say, the more likely one was to get a reasonable result, since many brains were better than one; and he applied the same argument to the judging of poetry and plays. ‘For even where there are many people, each has some share of virtue and practical wisdom; and when they are brought together… they become one in regard to character and intelligence.’"

Broom, Spade and Rifle

"Man never understands that the cities he has built are not an integral part of nature.  If he wants to defend his culture from wolves and snowstorms, if he wants to save it from being strangled by weeds, he must keep his broom, spade and rifle always at hand.  If he goes to sleep, if he thinks about something else for a year or two, everything's lost.  The wolves come out of the forest, the thistles spread and everything is buried under dust and snow.  Just think how many great capitals have succumbed to dust, snow and couch-grass."

--Vasily Grossman, Life and Fate

The Meaning of Life

Walter Russell Mead has written an interesting "Yule Blog" on the centrality of meaning to human life.

"Our lives in the world point us towards something beyond the facts of our lives. Eating, drinking, making babies: this is all very well, but our lives do more than revolve around the simple biological necessities. They point us toward meaning. 

"Most people, including the very large majority of those people who say they are atheists, believe that life means something. To those who believe that life means something, the moral feelings we have about justice and duty (for example) aren’t just random biological signals that flash across our neurons in response to evolutionary patterns. We sometimes can’t articulate why this is true, but we feel that it matters that we do the right thing: that we bring up our kids well, that we honor our parents and care for them when they are old, that we remain loyal to our spouses and keep our wedding vows, that we behave fairly in our dealings with other people and that we contribute to the greater good through the way we live our lives. There are people and causes for which many of us are willing (though perhaps not particularly eager) to die. 

"Maybe we feel this way because we are biologically hard-wired to do so, but the fact is that the overwhelming majority of people around the world believe that life counts and that the whole is somehow greater than the sum of the parts.

"This feeling that there is some meaning to our lives is the basis, I think, not only for the Christian religion and for all religions and mystical experiences; it is the basis for the many noble forms of ethical thought and philosophical reflection found among atheists and agnostics. Anyone who feels the pull of a higher path and greater responsibilities than just blindly grabbing what can be seized is moved by a vision of something outside ones own life that compels our allegiance and respect: a vision of what matters and a sense of life’s meaning.

"That sense of life’s meaning is our sense of the transcendent: a sense that our experience points beyond itself to something important."

Where is He?

"We apprehend Him in the alternate voids and fullnesses of a cathedral: in the space that separates the salient features of a picture: in the living geometry of a flower, a seashell, an animal: in the pauses and intervals between the notes of music, in their difference and sonority: and finally on the plane of conduct, in the love and gentleness, the confidence and humility which give beauty to the relationship between human beings."

--Aldous Huxley

Newtown

This living hand, now warm and capable

Of earnest grasping, would, if it were cold

And in the icy silence of the tomb,

So haunt thy days and chill thy dreaming nights

That thou wouldst wish thine own heart dry of blood

So in my veins red life might stream again,

And thou be conscience-calm'd -- see here it is --

I hold it towards you.

--Keats (1819)