Week in Seven Words #564

This covers the week of 11/8/20 - 11/14/20.

boredom

He's under the impression that his boredom makes him unique. He believes it's a sign of superior intelligence.

eventful

Quarantined at home, she wears an evening gown to her microwaved dinner.

inevitability

Was it always going to happen this way? Could there have been another way? Another reminder to shift from what-ifs to what I have to do now.

innocence

There's enchantment in his voice when he points out the leaves whirling, settling on the sidewalk in a cascade of gold.

pasty-faced

We Skype again, our voices subdued. I don't even think it's something we enjoy doing anymore, seeing each other's faces through a screen. There's something tiring and unreal about it.

upcycled

As the sun sets, we stroll among dog sculptures made of plastic bags. They're cleverly done, colorful, a contrast to the loose bags and other bits of garbage along the street. Afterwards, we sit on a bench and talk for a while, until it gets too cold and dark.

walking

The day is made better by changing leaves and weather that's cool, not cold.

Week in Seven Words #499

delightful
"I hope I never get tired of this stuff," she says, about cartoonish sculptures on the 14th Street platform of the A and C subway lines. She doesn't want to become jaded.

dining
We eat burgers in a lovely cellar-like restaurant, noisy but cozy.

immerses
She's demolishing a large bag of potato chips while watching a Korean soap opera on her phone.

learned
During the first half of the class, she acts as if she knows everything, and only gradually becomes more open to seeing new ways of solving problems. Others never develop that openness.

patience
The instructor acts as if he has clumsily assembled his patience out of plywood. With each question, each hand waving in the air, it splinters.

sofas
Some of the sofa cushions feel like taut air bubbles shifting under me. One of them, though, has just the right balance between staying firm and giving way.

upper-class
Two elegant, well-groomed dogs are crossing the plaza with a mincing walk, and I wonder if they're 18th century aristocrats who have been reincarnated as canines.

Seven Short Stories I Should Have Read with Coffee

It was International Coffee Day recently, and though I don't drink much coffee, maybe it could have helped with the short stories here. These are short stories I liked but wasn't sufficiently alert while reading them. (And I took few notes.) They're also tricky in different ways - they might depend on a slippery narrator or express something frustrating and undefined just out of reach.

Title: The 5:22
Author: George Harrar
Where I Read It: Boston Noir 2

"The simple question 'What if?' could lead to so many disturbing places."

Walter Mason, a researcher at MIT, is solitary and sticks closely to routines. His daily commute doesn't stray from its schedule. Then, on one of his train rides, he notices a woman who's wearing a scarf. When the wind blows it aside, he sees she's missing an ear. In the course of the story, the woman disappears from his commute, and one day the conductor who's always there doesn't show up either. The train also misses his usual stop.

The shake up to his routine is unsettling and creates unease. But it could wind up not affecting his life much. Or maybe it will nudge him towards something better. Moments that appear inconsequential can call for courage and have a profound effect, like taking a chance to talk to someone instead of stare at them.

Marilynne Robinson's "Psalm 8" is a thoughtful, nourishing piece

For Deal Me In, I recently read "Psalm 8" by Marilynne Robinson.

So I have spent my life watching, not to see beyond the world, merely to see, great mystery, what is plainly before my eyes. I think the concept of transcendence is based on a misreading of creation. With all due respect to heaven, the scene of the miracle is here, among us.

I was drawn to this essay because I've read the eighth psalm; I come to it from Jewish faith, and Robinson from a Christian background. I wanted to see what she had to say on it. The essay isn't entirely about the psalm, but it explores some of its themes. At one point, the psalm asks what man is exactly, to have the notice or remembrance of God. What is man to merit such attention?

("A question is more spacious than a statement," Robinson writes, "far better suited to expressing wonder.")

One reason I like this essay is that it's an intelligent, perceptive exploration of religious text and experience. I've come across writings on religion that flatten the world and make the soul shrink. This essay is full of an appreciation of mystery.

Also, there's a love of humanity in it. It's written without sentimentality but with a recognition of people's special dignity. And there's humility in it too, not exaggerated in any way, just a straightforward kind in which the mind is alive with questions that present no easy answers.

In some of her other writings, like her essay, "Darwinism," Robinson speaks out against the way people use science to try to diminish humanity; she isn't "anti-science," but writes of how science can become another ideological weapon. So can religion, but in reading Robinson's writing, religion is nothing so simple as that. And that's one reason I appreciate what I've read so far of her work. She isn't an ideologue; she doesn't want to make the world uglier by pretending everything is knowable.

A guest among gorillas

Fewer than one thousand wild mountain gorillas are left in the world. About two and a half minutes into this video, there's an awesome encounter between a man and a small group of these gorillas. There are some moments of tension initially, especially before the large one settles down (notice how the man is keeping his head down at first and also making sure to avoid eye contact, which can be a sign of aggressive intent), but mostly it's an experience of joy and wonder. I love how they settle around, sniff him out, groom him a bit. He's a novelty, but non-threatening and vaguely similar to them so he remains welcomed, fortunately for him.

Extracts: "Worship and living are not two separate realms."

Yom Kippur (the Day of Atonement) starts this evening, and I'm reading these words now from Abraham Joshua Heschel's book God in Search of Man:

The problem of living does not begin with the question of how to take care of the rascals, of how to prevent delinquency or hideous crimes. The problem of living begins with the realization that all of us blunder in our dealings with our fellow men. The silent atrocities, the secret scandals... are the true seat of moral infection. The problem of living begins, in fact, in relation to our own selves, in the handling of our emotional functions, in the way we deal with envy, greed, and pride.

Worship and living are not two separate realms. Unless living is a form of worship, our worship has no life. Religion is not a reservation, a tract of time reserved for solemn celebrations on festive days. The spirit withers when confined in splendid isolation. What is decisive is not the climax we reach in rare moments, but how the achievements of rare moments affect the climate of the entire life. The goal of Jewish law is to be the grammar of living, dealing with all relations and functions of living.

Religion is trying to teach us that no act is trite, every moment is an extraordinary occasion.

The highest peak of spiritual living is not necessarily reached in rare moments of ecstasy; the highest peak lies wherever we are and may be ascended in a common deed. There can be as sublime a holiness in performing friendship, in observing dietary laws day by day, as in uttering a prayer on the Day of Atonement.

It is not by the rare act of greatness that character is determined, but by everyday actions, by a constant effort to rend our callousness.