Fall 2012

I wanted you. And I was looking for you. But I couldn't find you. I wanted you. And I was looking for you all day. But I couldn't find you. I couldn't find you. You're walking. And you don't always realize it, but you're always falling. With each step you fall forward slightly. And then catch yourself from falling. Over and over, you're falling. And then catching yourself from falling. And this is how you can be walking and falling at the same time.

Traveling without moving

Again, we may find a violence in some of the traditional imagery which tends to obscure the changelessness of God, the peace, which nearly all who approach Him have reported—the ‘still, small voice’. And it is here, I think, that the pre-Christian imagery is least suggestive. Yet even here, there is a danger lest the half conscious picture of some huge thing at rest—a clear, still ocean, a dome of ‘white radiance’—should smuggle in ideas of inertia or vacuity. The stillness in which the mystics approach Him is intent and alert—at the opposite pole from sleep or reverie. They are becoming like Him. Silences in the physical world occur in empty places: but the ultimate Peace is silent through very density of life. Saying is swallowed up in being. There is no movement because His action (which is Himself) is timeless. You might, if you wished, call it movement at an infinite speed, which is the same thing as rest, but reached by a different—perhaps a less misleading—way of approach.

Lewis, C. S.. Miracles (Collected Letters of C.S. Lewi) (pp. 148-149). Harper Collins, Inc.. Kindle Edition.

Hope Prayer

I hope that I will always be for each man what he needs me to be.

I hope that each man's death will always diminish me, but that fear of my own will never diminish my joy of life.

I hope that my love for those whom I like will never lessen my love for those whom I do not.

I hope that another man's love for me never be measure of my love for him.

I hope that every man will accept me as I am, but that I never will.

I hope that I will always ask for forgiveness from others, but will never need be asked for my own.

I hope that I will find a woman to love, but that I will never seek one.

I hope that I will always recognize my limitations, but that I will construct none.

I hope that loving will always be my goal, but that love will never be my idol.

I hope that every man will always have hope.

--Henri Nouwen, "Intimacy"

PS: Propaganda by Edward L. Bernays

This book is more a general survey of the use of propaganda in public relations and marketing in the US in the early twentieth century. It has value in observing the extent of the use of propaganda in various spheres of society up to 1928AD. Eighty-four years later here in the early twenty-first century we can contrast our current situation of consolidated control of media outlets, spin-doctoring, and general over-saturation of marketing to the point where we all must endure this time of universal deceit. Not using propaganda and simply speaking the truth is now a revolutionary act (to paraphrase Orwell), but I diagress...I was disappointed with this small book (now in PDF), because I was looking for a more practical exposition of the various elements of propaganda and how to best effectively use them to achieve the desired results. I shall have to look elsewhere for my on-going research. The book does have value for historical perspective and to give some general ideas on the more benign aspects of propaganda as used in public relations and marketing. Another valuable aspect of this book is the window into the elitest/oligarchic view of the masses as objects for manipulation that the professional propagandist holds; here illustrated by the following quote:

"No serious sociologist any longer believes that the voice of the people expresses any divine or specially wise and lofty idea. The voice of the people expresses the mind of the people, and that mind is made up for it by the group leaders in whom it believes and by those persons who understand the manipulation of public opinion. It is composed of inherited prejudices and symbols and cliches and verbal formulas supplied to them by the leaders."

The book also brought to mind Asimov's idea of the psycho-historian in his Foundation Trilogy. On balance, the book is worth reading.

View all my reviews

Personal Update

I give thanks and praise to God for the small measure of peace He has given me recently. I am back to reading again and shall soon take up my keyboard and write again. I started to attend a writers group led by an excellent about-to-be published historical fiction writer. After taking to heart the constructive criticism of my writing, I realized that I needed to go back to the fundamentals of good prose. I am going all the way back to work on sentence structure, paragraph structure, and style/texture. Once I have improved beyond embarrassing myself, I hope to go back to the group.

Most of my past writing has been non-fiction essays or papers for school, and in recent times this blog. Now I am trying my hand at fiction writing--a completely different way of expression. When I was writing creatively in high school, I concentrated on poetry, and at the time I concurred with writers from olden times who believed that poetry was the highest form of literature. But we must fast-forward several hundred years later to the present day where the novel, graphic novel, and screenplay are the most popular media for telling stories. Writing fiction is more difficult than it first appears, and I must go through much failure before anyone will like my stories. I hope my Lord Jesus Christ will help me to persevere so that I can tell the many stories locked up inside my head; if the Lord allows, I hope to give greater glory to Him, by blessing readers with good reads. It is a tall order, and I still feel too much, but by His grace.....

Novo Visum
Neue Ansicht