A Red State Mystic.

Hello, I am currently reading about the rise of the cult of Mary in the Christian West and I was wondering if any of you know of any (preferably scholarly) books on the development of the cult of Mary in Byzantium. Thanks!

Friends,
Yesterday was the last day of Pushkin's Little Tragedies at
the Baryshnikov Theater and we, a group of his friends, saw Peter
Von Berg play three roles and in particular that of the Baron in
"The Knight Miser". Here is Peter as Baron. and some other
pictures( Read more... )
and as you see I have added some thought on the Little Tragdedies.
After, good pasta and wine and talk and then coming to Grand Central
Station I saw the Chrysler building strikingly radiant in the mist
after a day of light rain. I put a small image at the end but here
it is larger( Read more... )
I realized again and newly what a beautiful building the Chrysler
Building and what a beautiful place the City is...
and perhaps you will enjoy seeing it with me here,
and as always inviting all your thought on these things or on
anything else at all, yours
+Seraphim
.
Perhaps it is partly the mist, like the fog of sherlock holmes' London
of romance, but we see a New York of romance don't we? Is that City always
there within the city if not always as clearly visible as here...?

Friends,
Will be in the City today. Pushkin Little Tragedies at the
Baryshnikov this afternoon...
Last night talking with a friend, the question of what is
a Christian equivalent to the famous Zen saying
"If you see a Buddha in the road kill him."
Which is of course a warning against inflation...
There is "only the hand that erases can write the true
thing."
But that, and for that matter the Zen tradition too, is
rather sophisticated. I look in the desert fathers
sayings ,sayings which are simple and unrefined, not within
a tradition but newly made. There is of course "If you
see a brother rising up to heaven pull him down." but
here is one less familiar maybe...

"Even if an angel should indeed appear to you,
do not receive him..."

A couple of others strike me and may interest you, or
someone...


"A man may seem to be silent, but if his heart is condemning
others, he is babbling ceaselessly. But there may be another
who talks from morning till night and yet he is truly silent..."

and

"There was a man who ate a lot and was till hungry, and another
who ate little and was satisfied. The one who ate a lot and was
still hungry received a greater reward than he who ate little and
was satisfied."

These then in haste before starting out. They are easy to
apply to others but there is no-one I think to whom it does
not apply also ,to myself, to everyone that there are areas of
self satisfaction, of inner babbling, of inflation and
fascination with a false ideal self like an angel...

well anyway they are road signs...vectors...

as always welcoming all your response on these or other
I am yours
+Seraphim
.

I no longer have to depend on my Uncle Drosselmayer for protection against rodent infection. I use Contrac Bait Pellets!

Friends,
Some news yesterday reminded me of the conclusion of
Full Metal Jacket.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PmILOL55xP0
the mickey mouse song wove in and out of my night...
now looking at the thing again I am reminded that Joker
said that while the world around him is askew he is alive
and not afraid, going on as best he can with his comrades,
that is a positive thought isnt it? Speaking of the movie
I like that its effect is neither dovish nor hawkish,
it is non-political in that way. The peace sign and the
'born to kill' on Joker's helmet show the poles within
which his road runs...
Kubrick the director was nonpolitical...His Barry Lyndon
is a film I like,for its theme music perhaps the most
moving music to me that I know(sarabande) but also its
bitter sweet view of life...The music is here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=erKsIJyfB_Q
and the visual clips epitomize the mood nicely...

Else thinking about Thanksgiving and hoping to formulate
a plan so I will not be forlorn. The family I am usually
with is not doing a Thanksgiving this year. Perhaps I
could drive somewhere on a two day vacation although it
would cost money.

In Autumn the leaves turn red and yellow but also some of
the reds shade into purple and the photo at the end today
shows a bit of that, and it is a transformation I particularly
like...
If you also like purple leaves and would like to see this
photo from yesterday a little larger click here.( Read more... )
If only we could also have some blue leaves!

Else reading along in the four books I am reading
(perhaps I will add on one or another)
One by and one about Kandinsky, Nabokov's Gift
and the Conjure Man Dies. I think for many of us it can be more of a
useful thing to read than to write novels. I say subversively of
nanowrimo. But really I understand how it is a creativity for many
and for of course some of you (I think also for some there could
be publishable elements that might appear within a novel unpublishable
as a whole and that is great) and its just that I ,likely rightly,
sense I dont have any worthwhile novel in me.
Old Japanese story of writer doing a novel
based on his father, and then one on his also deceased mother, looking
across breakfast table at his wife and saying "you know I think I have
one more novel in me."

Today these various...they are in effect just a few purple leaves
maybe...and as always I invite all your thought on these or
anything else,
yours
+Seraphim
.
Purple leaves...the whole rather like a painting perhaps?
larger form within the post.

Is there a website from which I can study about the meaning of Orthodox iconography?

I haven't told my parents I'm converting yet, and I think that they would probably be asking questions if they see me bowing to a picture. Having something in my head about how to 'read' icons would be helpful.

For those of you who are converts, how did you explain, in a few sentences, the place of Orthodox iconography in worship, and how to differentiate it from idolatry? I know the arguments, but I'm trying to figure out how to phrase it to someone. Like, if you had only one chance, and only three sentences to explain to them.

Friends,
Good discussion yesterday on the duties of a literary
executor...
Today I will go get a seasonal flu shot at noon.
Hope not much in terms of side effects. Advent is
coming...and of course the season is iteself a
permanent place on the inner map as it were or maybe
it is,or may or even ought be,a permanent orientation.
I have started reading several books, four perhaps I
will add another, so that can be a way to enter the
outward season.
Here is a quote today, which someone posted. I think
it is simple and good and perhaps best served by
presentation without more on it from me.

“The widest thing in the universe is not space;
it is the potential capacity of the human heart.
Being made in the image of God, it is capable of
almost unlimited extension in all directions. And
one of the world's greatest tragedies is that we
allow our hearts to shrink until there is room
in them for little beside ourselves.”
A. W. Tozer

Well we could make one comment without being intrusive
perhaps and that is that as to Advent, if there is no
inner space then there can be no Advent.
Else Autumn recedes, grey skies, more bare branches
though still some leaves, perhaps you will join me
in liking this image at the end and as always I invite
all your comment on anything at all and am yours
+Seraphim
.

EDIT@08:16 UTC/GMT. Wow. That was ugly. I expected it to go for 30 minutes and have maybe 1 minute of broken connectivity. Instead it lasted over 4 hours and we had 10 minutes of downtime directly related to the load balancer upgrades and then another 5-10 minutes of downtime when our primary Pingback database server crashed and the secondary couldn't take over; which could have been indirectly caused by the network upgrade missing a self-VIP.

Anyways, we're up, we're working, the load balancers are barely breaking a sweat right now and I need some food and a shot of whiskey. I don't even *like* whiskey!!

Thanks mhwest and dnewhall for helping out!

---

On Saturday the 14th at 4AM UTC/GMT we will be upgrading the operating system of our network load balancers to a newer version, one that will allow us to use both CPUs! Nifty, because multiprocessing is nice.

Since we have 2 load balancers, the plan is to upgrade 1 at a time, and there really should be very little impact to our website. Hopefully you won't notice a thing and I'll get to go back to the hotel and watch some wonderful late night infomercials.

We've got a lot of exciting projects coming up for 2010 and we're hoping that we'll be able to deliver them all to you, that you will find it useful/cool/lovely and then you will use the site even more. Behind-the-scenes work like this will give us the capacity to handle the anticipated traffic, so expect a few more maintenance windows especially in the beginning of next year as we've got some neat ideas to improve performance around here! We had the recent 30-45 minute outage yesterday due to one of our logging databases filling up disk space -- not so great design coupled with my human error in handling the initial problem -- and it looks like we're going to finally have some resources to eliminate stuff like that. I can't wait!

As usual, I will be updating status.livejournal.org before and after, just in case you are not able to reach our main website during the work.

Friends,
A lot of small things on mind. Preparing talk for
banquet next Tuesday of OCMC--Orthodox Missions Center.
I will not work that here in this journal as I have some
papers.
This Saturday we will go to Pushkin little tragedies
(the first performance of it, Stanislavsky failed to stage
it) and I am told our Peter Von Berg petervb42 is
great in it. Anyone able to join us for 2pm matinee contact
me. Also Dr Steven Ware of Nyack agrees to meet our group
Transfiguration on December 5.
But for here I have perhaps not much special
to say today ...

I am interested in reading of a 'new' book of Vladimir
Nabokov , made from notes left by the author and released
by his son Dimitri Nabokov after many 30 years of family
and inner debate--The Original of Laura
Now my question, to order or not to order? Out on November
17th. Michiko Kakutani(New York Times) summarizes
"in a sketchy hall of mirrors Nabokov jousts with death
and reality". She is of two minds as to whether it should
have come out at all.Perhaps I should wait for the
New York Post review?

Together with C.G.Jung's even more important Red Book,
which I have on order, this makes two great publishing
events this Fall of works which were not intended for
publication by their authors.

That leads to the following poll if anyone is interested.
It is an old question in literature. Sometimes it has
personal ramifications. When my father died he told me to
destroy all his papers. I did in general. certainly all the
personal papers, all the notebooks in small illegible
hand writing recording books and concerts. but not all of his
writing. This I feel he would have been happy that I cared
to keep, and it is not I think at this point publishable in
any case.
Anyway:
Poll #1483965 The Death and Destruction Poll
Open to: All, detailed results viewable to: All, participants: 35

With publications this year of posthumous work of Jung and Nabokov the question arises of obying author's wishes to not publish a work after his death...

View Answers

I tend to think the author's wish to have remaining work destroyed or anyway not published should be obeyed
11 (31.4%)

I tend to think that works that may have value should be made available in any case
24 (68.6%)

Of course the title of the poll is a bit gaudy and the options
are not very exact but it seems to me that a subject that divides
people can have some interest in seeing how they divide...just
if you are interested and it may add to interest if you will add
a comment.
really the poll cannot measure fine points but it can show what
is the first gut reaction and that can have interest.
otherwise I have only a photo from yesterday at a nearby pond.( Read more... )
and a Kandinsky at the end,and I am yours inviting all your response,
+Seraphim
.
Kandinsky Several Circles

Friends,
Notes and asides today...
1. 'The Conjure Man Dies" by Rudolph Fisher is a Harlem
murder mystery from 1932. It is out of print and not available
cheap unfortunately. I am reading a library copy but just the
note that it deserves availability--not great writing, not I
think(looked ahead to end)a great story either, but atmospheric
and with a fine ear for talk.

2.Fr.Vinogradov remarks on the critique of Evdokimov on
icons by Jacques Ellul (this entry is rapidly devolving
into a 'talking heads' thing isn't it?). I find it on line
Ellul's most, to my mind, effective point is this--
"This theology of the icon rests on a certain conception
of the incarnation that utterly fails to take into account
its unfulfilled aspect:the waiting and hope.".
My response would be to regret the word 'utterly'--why could
he not be satisfied to say 'perhaps risks to insufficiently
take into account etc' and to wish
that thoughts could be placed side by side(of course intent
readers here if there are any will recall my preference for
complementarity ,for allowing opposite statements to
complete each other)rather than in either/or form. If he would
say 'a somewhat romantic iconology like Evdokimov's risks,
entirely contrary to its intent, to undervalue openness to
the future, expectation and hope'...it might be better?

3.Whether or not icons are separate from 'art history' here
is an image I like by Paul Klee, Magic Garden I will
put it large here with such commentary as I find on line.( Read more... )
I would be happy for some other commentary from some reader here or
from some writer to put more clearly what we like in this image.
Perhaps it is essentially musical...

4.Here ,speaking of musical, is a Kandinsky I especially liked
at the exhibit at the Guggenheim. Black Arch ( Read more... )
Perhaps this time I do not feel an urge for interpretation or verbal
appreciation. Is it that the arch seems a simpler image than the
goblet or chalice at the center of the Garden?

Today these, I think it can be enough, and as always invite
all your response and am yours
+Seraphim
.
Magic Garden. Paul Klee. larger image within post.

I was reading a (fanfiction, so not professionally edited) story in which this sequence took place:

[Phantom:] “What? All of us? As in all of you plus me and Lance?”

“Lance and I, Sir Phantom,” Dora corrected gently.

---

Wouldn't the original version be correct? ("As in all of you plus me?" or "As in all of you plus I?") If not, how do you tell which is correct?

Friends,
At St Gregory's yesterday I was given a Georgian cap
(skoufia ) made in Montreal , Frs Alex and Michael already
had them so we took a photo after liturgy which reminds me
of the movie Three Amigos.

.
M.Plekon S.Sigrist A.Vinogradov
"Wherever there is injustice, You will find us! ... We'll be there!
Wherever liberty is threatened, You will find.....The Three Amigos!"

Trailer at the end reminds pleasantly of that Steve Martin film
--or introduces if you haven't seen it.
Besides this I look up to look at again a painting I saw
at the Kandinsky exhibit. It has a particular interest, not
as one of his masterworks ,but because it --made when he
was briefly back in Russia in 1920 --is a step back from
pure abstraction and is an image of the city of Moscow.
for this please click to the right here( Read more... )
Today these, lighter than yesterday but you may say something
serious as well as light if you wish, all welcome, yours
+Seraphim

The final 'why?' from Carmen is touching.

Friends,
At the end of today's an inner view of the Guggenheim museum
looking up. It is where I was at the wonderful Kandinsky exhibit
yesterday, if you are anywhere near New York you must see it at
least once before it closes in January. Yesterday it seemed
everyone was there, a long line but moving quickly for tickets.

On the way in passing through Harlem we could see many new
housing units like condominiums, a very genrified upscale
uptown is emerging in parts alongside the old Harlem. I borrow
the dvd of Cotton Comes to Harlem based on what I remember
as a wonderful novel by Chester Himes celebrating the eccentric
characters of the old Harlem. Also think to read The Conjure
Man Dies a Harlem mystery novel from the 1930s. I have not
been much in Harlem but I sense that something will be lost...
Anyone knowledgeable on Harlem? Do you have a feeling of it losing
as well as gaining?

Now this morning I made my sermon on St.Michael the Archangel.
It is a fairly major production for me as anyone who has read
this journal in recent days knows, not really so much a
sermon as a paper or a meditation... I will give it all here
with footnotes added. I hope you may be interested to read it
and having read it that you may have found something of
interest and even share in turn your thought. Here it is
if you will click to the right.( Read more... )
I have added some pictures of the Guggenheim Museum, and the
street outside...
as always I invite all your thought on the subject of the text
on Archangel Michael or the footnotes of course you do not need
to read it all unless you are interested. It will not be on the
final exam. or the pictures or on
Kandinsky or on Harlem or on whatever else you have today, light
or serious all welcome and I am yours,
+Seraphim
.
Guggenheim Museum looking up...the museum tier upon tier of
its winding path might remind also of Jacob's great dreamed
ladder on which the angels moved to and from absolute Height.

I just received this message from a FB friend, but am at a loss for suggestions. I know you guys know pretty much everything, so I was hoping you could help out. Have a gander at this (unedited) message:

I know you like grammer, so I have a question for you. Since we live in Germany, the teachers favor British English. As a result, my daughter has trouble with the present perfect. In American, if someone asks, Did you eat/Have you eaten already? both are correct. If I would like to emphasize that I'm starving, I would definitely say, I haven't eaten since yesterday. I need a respectable cite for the fact that in American English, one can use the simple past in sentences with words such as already, yet... Can you think of one. I searched the net and only found one article.

Normally, Google saves the day for me, but as she's said she's already searched the 'net, I decided I'd save some time and just post here.

Help, geniuses!

My best friend IRL also plays World of Warcraft and is on Facebook.

He CONSISTENTLY spells "hey" as "hay".

He's my best bud so I don't give him a hard time about his grammar - he also can't handle "your" and "you're" despite having a higher college degree than mine - but this "hay" nonsense each time he messages me is driving me CRAZY.

I watched the end of an interview on public channel 13
with Charlie Rose and Patriarch Bartholomew of Constantinople.

His book Encountering the Mystery is well written and researched.
What I liked about it is that is stresses, the sacraments in
non abstract language applied in practical daily living.
http://www.antiochian.org/node/17473

here is the transcript and below I will note
the passages that I found most interesting.
http://www.charlierose.com/download/transcript/10696

CHARLIE ROSE: "One might ask with respect, is the church doing enough?
Is the church communicating well enough, whether it’s Islam, whether it’s
Christianity, whether it’s Judaism? It’s a huge responsibility to have us
understand values, fairness, equity.

ECUMENICAL PATRIARCH BARTHOLOMEW: To be honest, no.

Religion has done a lot throughout the centuries for us Christians,
Christianity gives the strongest message, and the essence of our Christian
faith is love and respect for the human person.

But neither Christianity nor the other monotheistic religions
succeeded to bring peace and love and respect all over the globe as we
experience it every day.

Because representatives of religions are also human beings, it means
not perfect. They have their own the things, they have their own
incapacities and willingness to fulfill their sacred responsibilities, and
sometimes not internal but objective, external reasons prohibit us to
fulfill our sacred mission and task.

And that is why whatever religions proclaim and promise is not the
reality in the life of humanity."

At first glance one might think that this is negative towards the church
but the message is very important as it turns one to personal,
individual responsibility.

Friends,
I think we had enough on the Archangel Michael yesterday to
last a while. It is not a topic you hear discussed much on
the street or in pubs or salons is it? However it is there
if anyone is interested. well I will add one thought that
the old image of the world in its spheres rising in height on
height is of course quite different from the contemporary myth
(=model) in which it extends endlessly like a level sea to a
horizon lost in the mist. I expect the sense of the Angelicals
we have to the extent we are within one world image or another
will differ. Klee's "Angel of the Future" in the userpic seems
rather between or outside either which may not be bad...

But there I go again.We would not wish to dwell on a somehow
esoteric topic here! Quelle Idee! as we say in the trade.

Right but here is a poem by the painter Wasilly Kandinsky
which I think you will like!
.
Notice how the border between what one sees and does not
see fades away as the fish descends....perhaps there are other
features of interest.

And here are more late Autumn leaves here today in the lower
Hudson Valley( Read more... )
And as always I invite your response on these or on anything
else at all, yours
+Seraphim
.

Friends,
The leaves become fewer and yet the remaining ones
against a sparer background have their own fragile
beauty... Here is a picture from this morning in which
we can see each leaf in a way we could not when there
were more, as if the whole were a mobile hanging
in space.
I am trying to think about three difficult things at
once and it is too much. So I put aside the book
"Menorah for Athena" which I have on interlibrary loan
about the relation of Charles Reznikoff to his Judaism.
It seems, in the triage of things, more than I need to
know on the subject.
Secondly my little unit on Kandinsky, have several open
books as it were. But I am not spending enough time
with them to take in much especially given my lack
of background in art. Still I like his poems in
Sounds and here is one with its illustration,
the Kandinsky poem Seeing if you will ( Read more... )
Thirdly thinking, for this Sunday ,about St Michael and
All Angels. After those of yesterday and the day before
a further coordinate for thinking about Michael( Read more... )
These today quite various, Perhaps you will find even some
parallel between Kandinsky's poem and its rising from the
'gloom' and St Michael as we set it out. Of course anything
in a sense parallels anything, but Kandinsky's work is always
a spiritual journey too... and here are our leaves remaining
and floating in the air like a mobile and as always welcome
all you have on these or any other, yours
+Seraphim
.

Is this why those who died had breathing problems?

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1206807/Swine-flu-jab-link-killer-nerve-disease-Leaked-letter-reveals-concern-neurologists-25-deaths-America.html

Friends,
I am burned out as a Yankee fan and was long ago, but
(like some believer whose practice has been set aside for
a time and who yet goes through a church door at Christmas)
I still like Andy Pettitte and so if the Yankees win tonight
with him pitching I will be happy. and if they lose I will
think of Alex Rodriquez.

Now here at the end of the post
is an image from forioscribe,John
Palcewski, who lives on the isle of Ischia--multi talented
writer, critic, keen observer of life and not least
photographer. He posted today this image as a response
to ours of yesterday on the Angelicals and citing the
words which I put under it here.

It seems to me somehow that my little thought and this image
do resonate well to each other and it shows that livejournal
can really be a little creative and fun too.
Now I will say a couple more things about Angelicals, in
the runup to my sermon for St Michael's day on the Eastern
calendar this Sunday. They may be nonlinear a little and just
added coordinates to go with those yesterday. and finally
a greeting to all named Michael. If you
will click to the right here( Read more... )
Today these and as always I invite all your response and
am yours,
+Seraphim

.
""...ones own ideal self, that which one is
called to be, and draws to the ascent of the levels
of inner life..."