Liberal Arts Blog — From the Catholic Cross To The American Flag To The Hammer and The Sickle — The Game Of Focus, Focus, Focus
Liberal Arts Blog — Friday is the Joy of Art, Architecture, Design, Film, Fashion, and All Things Visual Day
Today’s Topic: From the Catholic Cross to the American Flag to the Hammer and the Sickle — the Game of Focus, Focus, Focus
Like Ahab, I’ve been chasing a whale for a long, long time. The whale is a metaphor for the Holy Grail.
The meaning of life. And I have found it. But to harpoon it, I need your help. I can’t do it alone. You are the harpooner. You are Queequeg. I need you.
Have you made your “Orion” yet? That is, the Orion of your life? The list of the seven most important things you learned in your life? Prioritized? Sorted neatly into sub-groups. Like the stars of the seven-star hour glass formation at the heart of the Orion constellation that is at the bottom of every email I send out — in the Quote of the Month section below that got stuck with one quote from Ralph Waldo Emerson a long time ago and has not changed since. If you have, you have not shared your seven-item list with the rest of us yet, well please do. Have courage!
Dive in! The water’s just perfect. Cool. Refreshing. Quickening.
Think of this as a board game. Call it “Focus, Focus, Focus.” Let’s play a round this morning. Pick the most meaningful symbol in your life so far. It could be the Buddhist Wheel, the Tao symbol, the hammer and the sickle, the crescent and the star, the Aum symbol, the Unitarian chalice, the Olympic Rings, your state flag, your country’s flag, the Bruin’s Wheel, the American flag, the United Nations Flag, the Star of David, the Disney Castle, whatever. What meaning have you come to assign to it? Can you explain that to the rest of us?
Experts — please chime in. Correct, elaborate, elucidate.
THE CATHOLIC CROSS — I stared it, almost daily for 12 years, but’s its meaning was fuzzy, undefined — no longer!
1. Is a crucifix creepy? Is wearing a cross like wearing an electric chair? An instrument of torture? or is it a symbol of hope, faith, and love?
2. Does it mean that “Christ died for our sins”? That Jesus loves us and saves us? What exactly does that mean?
3. Can you distill the essence of the message?
NB: Finally, age 68 or so, I figured it out. Long, long after I stopped going to Church. Years after I found out that my mother was Jewish. The meaning that makes most sense is that the vertical bar should be thought of as the First Commandment (Love God, or “piety,” or in the language of secular science, “gratitude.”) and the horizontal bar, the Second Commandment “Love Your Neighbor” (eg. kindness, love, charity). And half a century of study of the world’s great religions has taught me one thing — that these are the two core principles at the core of every single one of them.
THE HAMMER AND THE SICKLE — I was a hard-core Marxist for roughly a decade
1. It’s all about us versus them. All history is the history of class struggle. Workers of the World unite! Farm workers and factory workers.
2. The core premise lives on today. But it is wrong. We are all in this together. What we share dwarfs what separates us. We must focus on the positive, the shared, and the future.
3. We must focus on the dream that every child born reaches their full potential for joy, productivity, and responsibility.
NB: Are you with me? United we stand. Divided we fall. What form can our movement take?
Is a political party the wrong idea? Or how about the Party of We and Yes? (see second link just below). Perhaps a few technology whizzes out there could come up with some sort of mock election system that goes viral that offers a chance for a different choice outside of the current institutional framework?
Thinking Citizen Blog — The Party of We and Yes (Part II)
THE AMERICAN FLAG — what do the red, white, and blue mean to you? is this a great exercise for you next gathering of friends or family?
1. What do the red, white, and blue mean to you? Were you ever taught? In my experience, even members of the US military can not remember what they learned way back when.
2. This is a huge opportunity for focusing our collective minds, hearts, and souls.
3. Let me propose two options. Would you like to propose a third? Option One: The red is the past (the blood of those who gave their lives that we might enjoy the peace, prosperity, and freedom that we do today). The blue is the future — the dream that every child born reaches their full potential for joy, productivity, and responsibility. The white is the blank page of today — the challenge of focusing our whole beings, mind, body, and soul, to allocate our time and energy to doing something specific before we go to bed tonight to make a small step in the direction of that magical time and place, by leaning something new, thinking a bit more deeply, and spreading a little joy today. Option Two: the red is for the “red” states, the “conservatives.” The guys who put freedom before justice.
The blue for the “blue” states, the “progressives.” The guys who put justice before freedom.
White is for the common ground that they share. Can we focus on defining that “white” in a way that thrills the souls of all of us with gratitude for this one big chance to melt the fences of hate, anger, and envy and plant the seeds of faith, hope, and love?
NB: So what is your choice? Option One? Option Two? Do you have a third to propose?
History of the American Flag | A Capitol Fourth | PBS
Flag of the United States — Wikipedia
QUOTE OF THE MONTH
“Make your own Bible. Select and collect all the words and sentences that in all your readings have been to you like the blast of a trumpet.”
- Ralph Waldo Emerson
My spin — then periodically review, re-rank, and exchange your list with those you love. I call this the “Orion Exchange” because seven is about as many as any human can digest at a time. Game?
LAST FOUR YEARS OF POSTS ORGANIZED THEMATICALLY
Updating PDFs: 2023 — Google Drive
ATTACHMENTS BELOW:
#1 A graphic guide to justice (9 metaphors on one page).
#2 “39 Songs, Prayers, and Poems: the Keys to the Hearts of Seven Billion People” — Adams House Senior Common Room Presentation, (11/17/20)
NB: Palestine Orion (Decision) — let’s exchange Orions, let’s find Rumi’s field (“Beyond all ideas of right and wrong, there is a field. Meet me there” Rumi, 13 century Persian Sufi mystic)
YOUR TURN
Please share the coolest thing you learned recently or ever related to art, sculpture, design, architecture, film, or anything visual.
This is your chance to make someone else’s day. And to cement in your own memory something cool or important you might otherwise forget. Or to think more deeply than you otherwise would about something that is close to your heart.
