Land, Land, Land

I am from Oklahoma. I love that state for reasons I don’t even understand. I may never live there again, but it’s mine-all-mine and I’m exceedingly proud the be from there. From a very young age I have taken ‘the local’ very seriously. As a child and teenager (and to this day) I scoured history and pop culture for Oklahoma references so that I could wave them like flags in other peoples’ faces.

Gymnast Shannon Miller! Runner Jim Thorpe! Actor Wes Studi (A true Oklahoman; Cherokee was his first language)! The Musical! That one tornado movie! Will Rogers!

 

 

OOOOOklahoma!

 

Just the other day I discovered that a food blogger I greatly enjoy lives in Tulsa, Oklahoma and I said to myself: “Figures! Of course I like her cooking and her blogging. She lives in Oklahoma.” There’s no real logic to it; I just felt far more deeply justified in my appreciation of her skills. I felt a bizarre kinship to her just because of that fact (that and she cooks hearty, rich food, like I do).

This being the case, I have always loved regional histories. Just as with pop culture and food bloggers, I love to wade through historical events to discover proof that the places I love are worthy of the affection I already harbor for them. Places are meant to bear the weight and marks of their history. They are meant to give us, as C.S. Lewis puts it, “the pang of the particular”….that “local, unique sting.”

There are only a few places where the sting got to me, and I haven’t lived in those places for some time now. I have lived in places that have good qualities, interesting features, and reasonably interesting (if short) histories. But the land didn’t reach into me and influence me the way the others did. I miss that. There is nothing wrong with appreciating all locations, but I do not want to lose the ‘pang of the particular’ to nice generalities. I do not want to become the other being who:

“Cannot understand

Love that mortal bears

For native, native land—

All lands are theirs”

I think we are being culturally untaught love of native land. It is too often confused with jingoism or ethnocentrism for some, and seems meaningless or useless to others ‘in this global age.’ But I cannot see how homogeneity is any kind of improvement on the past. If you cannot conjure a love for that which was given to you first, how genuine will your affection for any new place be? It is like the old adage (or maybe it was just an adage in my family…my mom said it all the time): if you can’t love your siblings, get along with them, and treat them with honor, how long can you expect to be good and loving to any outsider? How you are at home is how you will (eventually) be elsewhere.

The other day I was asked: “But why is it that you love Iraq?” (one on my short list of land-loves)

I could scarcely explain, and I was repeating myself: the history, the Tigris, the Euphrates, the history, the people, the culture, Baghdad, the history! Its story can get into the blood against your will. It's not always a pretty story, mind you, but that is beside the point. Some of the best, deepest loved lands have some of the hardest, saddest histories (I’ve mentioned before that Iraq is often called the “Land of Three Rivers”…the third being of blood or tears).

It is not without meaning that God addresses both the people and the land all throughout the Bible. The land can be cultivated and loved…or it can become defiled (Leviticus 18:25). God desires it restored:

“O land, land, land, hear the word of the Lord!” (Jeremiah 22:9)

'In this global age' we may not understand very well. The world has been made to seem very small to us, the people and their lands increasingly interchangeable…our differences from one another, mere curiosities to cause a brief jolt of interest. But the land and the people have historically been intertwined and they mutually influence each other in unique fashion. People often carry their native land in them wherever they go, whether they notice it or not (whether they want to or not). Likewise the land bears its history and its people. It’s not everything, of course. But it’s not nothing either. We would do well to remember it.

 

 

Means and Ends

A musician by the name of Chuck E. Costa once decided to put a handful of Rudyard Kipling’s poems to music. For this I am deeply grateful because I have now memorized three-quarters of Kipling’s poem “If” although I’d probably have to sing it instead of say it if asked to recite.

“If” is a poem about virtues and honor in general, but in particular it’s about swearing to your own hurt. It’s about the hard virtues. The ones that don’t feel good. The ones that go against our grain. The ones that are almost impossible to remember in the moment of anger, betrayal or frustration. Or hard to remember in moments of triumph and superiority.

I had intended to post a video containing the Chuck E. Costa song, which is a slightly trucated version of the original, because it is beautiful the way he sings it. But I was unable to find it on youtube, so I simply advise it to you if your interested (the album is called "Never Seen a Jaguar" and the song simply "If")

Anyhow, here is the original:

If you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you;
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,
But make allowance for their doubting too;
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
Or, being lied about, don't deal in lies,
Or, being hated, don't give way to hating,
And yet don't look too good, nor talk too wise;

If you can dream - and not make dreams your master;
If you can think - and not make thoughts your aim;
If you can meet with triumph and disaster
And treat those two imposters just the same;
If you can bear to hear the truth you've spoken
Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,
Or watch the things you gave your life to broken,
And stoop and build 'em up with wornout tools;

If you can make one heap of all your winnings
And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss,
And lose, and start again at your beginnings
And never breath a word about your loss;
If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew
To serve your turn long after they are gone,
And so hold on when there is nothing in you
Except the Will which says to them: "Hold on";

If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,
Or walk with kings - nor lose the common touch;
If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you;
If all men count with you, but none too much;
If you can fill the unforgiving minute
With sixty seconds' worth of distance run -
Yours is the Earth and everything that's in it,
And - which is more - you'll be a Man my son!

There is so much to talk about and delve into in this poem—not to mention one or two bits that might be points of contention for some—that I have chosen only two lines to expound upon—those highlighted in bold: dream and not make dreams your master; think and not make thoughts your aim.

Those two lines are more of a knife through the modern psyche than anything else. We would all most likely agree that it is wise to not become too proud, and noble to push yourself to spite laziness and fear, and virtuous to refrain from lying no matter that others are doing so about you. But in current thought processes dreams are a sort of master, and thoughts surely are the aim, are they not?

These lines hit me hardest because I do have the horrifying tendency to let dreams become my master—to drive my thoughts and feelings, thence to drive my anger and disappointment. The dreams are not wrong, but their preeminence is. If the loss or failure of them ruins someone—sunders them and puts them to the ground—then that someone held those dreams too high aloft. They gave them too much weight. They made them god and master.

A fairly predominate theme in so many inspirational movies these days is “chase your dreams.” And that’s not wholly bad. If someone is afraid of taking risks, afraid of stepping outside and making things happen, then they probably do need to be encouraged in that manner. But underneath that benign theme lies the potential to make dreams a master that rules you ruthlessly for your entire life. It’s strange how something so sunny on the surface can be shudder-inducing after the sheen’s rubbed off.

However, even more pertinent to face against post-modern thinking is the line “to think and not make thoughts your aim.” Such a subtle, elementary idea and yet it flies in the face of much of modern western academia and of youth culture. Sitting around in the coffee-shop and producing “thoughts” and things to “think about” and mulling over the “exchange of ideas” is often—rather than the means to an end—a goal in and of itself. It becomes a game of throwing thoughts out on the table like cards to see who has the best hand.

Thinking without purpose, thinking without aim—thinking without desiring or intending any true conclusion. Thinking, perhaps, without believing there can ever be any conclusion. That's post-modernism 'to a T'; it is more than happy to run on a treadmill, dutifully moving its legs, going nowhere—exercising the mind often without knowing how to use it in real contexts to reach real solutions…or find real answers.

It just so happened that while I had already decided to write about the “If” poem I happened upon this verse in Acts:

“All the Athenians and the foreigners who lived there spent their time doing nothing but talking about and listening to the latest ideas”

And a few of the Athenians actually listened, discussed and thought until they reached a conclusion but only a few, it seems. And we are a very Athenian culture these days—in ways both good and bad. It’s wonderful to be willing to hear, engage, argue and indeed “exchange ideas”—it’s deadly not to put all that to use in making concrete choices that follow from good thought.

Point being, I don’t want to be as some high-minded cook that will go on forever adding spices and ingredients without ever feeling a need to pause and taste what it is I have been concocting. That’s what thoughts being the aim is; cooking without tasting or eating; theory without application; experiment without viewing the results; or, simply, fear. Thought in and of itself is not going to sustain you when times get rough. Thoughts, however rich and good and enjoyable, are a means to an even better end.

I know I left the last post with a lengthy C.S. Lewis quote, but he keeps managing to have pertinent things to say, so here is a section from “The Great Divorce” in which a ghost from gray purgatory-like “hell” goes up to visit an old academic friend in Heaven and decide whether or not he might stay up there. One is referred to as the ghost (and occasionally the Episcopal ghost) and the heaven-living one is real or ‘the other one’.

(the real one)

“I have nothing to do with generality. Nor with any man but you and me. Oh, as you love your own soul, remember. You know that you and I were playing with loaded dice. We didn’t want the other to be true. We were afraid of crude Salvationism, afraid of a breach with the spirit of the age, afraid of ridicule, afraid (above all) of real spiritual fears and hopes”

(The conversation regarding this carries on, with the ghost saying things like “ah yes, that is a point of view. Certainly it’s a point of view,” until the real person invites the ghost into heaven)

“Will you come with me to the mountains? It will hurt at first, until your feet are hardened. Reality is harsh to the feet of shadows. But will you come?”

(and the ghost says)

“’Well, that is a plan. I am perfectly ready to consider it. Of course I should require some assurances…I should want a guarantee that you are taking me to a place where I shall find a wider sphere of usefulness—and scope for the talents God has given me—and an atmosphere of free inquiry—in short, all that one means by civilization and—er—the spiritual life’

‘No,’ said the other. ‘I can promise you none of these things. No sphere of usefulness: you are not needed there at all. No scope for your talents: only forgiveness for having perverted them. No atmosphere of inquiry, for I will bring you to the land not of questions but of answers, and you shall see the face of God.’

(the ghost): ‘Ah but we must interpret those beautiful words in our own way! For me there is no such thing as a final answer. The free wind of inquiry must always continue to blow through the mind, must it not? “Prove all things”…to travel hopefully is better than to arrive.’

(the real one): ‘If that were true, and known to be true, how could anyone travel hopefully? There would be nothing to hope for.’

(the ghost): ‘But you must feel yourself that there is something stifling about the idea of finality? Stagnation, my dear boy, what is more soul-destroying than stagnation?’

(the real one): ‘You think that,  because hitherto you have experienced truth only with the abstract intellect. I will bring you where you can taste it like honey and be embraced by it as by a bridegroom. Your thirst shall be quenched.’

(and finally, later, the heaven-living one says): ‘Once you were a child. Once you knew what inquiry was for. There was a time when you asked questions because you wanted answers, and were glad when you had found them. Become that child again: even now…Thirst was made for water; inquiry for truth”

‘Think and not make thoughts your aim,’ lest we grow afraid of finding answers. When the ghost fears stagnation, what he does not realize is that inquiry for the sake of inquiry is the stagnant and cyclical thing, NOT the finding of answers and the standing on solid ground. The first is the house on sand, the latter the house on rock. One washes in and out with the tides, the other holds strong and provides shelter. Our thirst will be quenched.

Tomato Soup and Jiu Jitsu

I actually wrote this a while ago, wasn’t sure what to do with it, and have decided to put it here, but I suspect it desires some context. I do, at any rate.

Brazilian Jiu Jitsu is a ground-fighting sport (for those unfamiliar, it bears a faint resemblance to wrestling but it’s much more—in my humble opinion—elegant). It utilizes some elements of wrestling, but is far more versatile in its rules and movements and permits pragmatic elements such as the use of clothing and grips to achieve advantage (a thing not permitted in traditional wrestling).

It is an intriguing sport, which has a great deal of real-world application which is something I like in any kind of athletics.

If you prefer a visual explanation here’s a clip of a match, for additional context:

Brazilian Jiu Jitsu Demo

If not, the following is my attempt to talk about my interests in cooking and Brazilian Jiu Jitsu…no, not in succession. Concurrently.

Recently I decided to take some oft-repeated good advice and bring a notebook to Brazilian Jiu Jitsu (BJJ hereafter, for efficiency) class so that I could track my progress and remember to remember things. But I was in a hurry. So I grabbed the first thing I could find, which happened to be one of my many recipe notebooks.

I’m not the most naturally organized creature, so I have recipes written everywhere—in moleskine notebooks, in spirals, on random sheets of paper and even on the backs of grocery receipts. I know where the recipes are even if no one else does. Many of these scrap sheets of paper are covered in the carnage of cooking: a splatter of tomato juice on the edge of this page, and a smudge of garlic on that one.

That’s all good and well. I hope the same thing happens with the BJJ half of my notebook. I expect there will be sweat smudges and haphazardly written notes, jotted down by tired fingers and an exhausted arm. Notes that probably look like nonsense to anyone else.

The fact is that cooking and BJJ are far more suited to the same notebook than anybody might think. And, no, not just because BJJ makes you hungry. It’s because cooking starts awkwardly (measure, check recipe, pour, check recipe, stir---but don’t stir too hard! Don’t overcook it! Precision!) but eventually it sinks in and you can do whatever you want with it. You can deviate from the recipe and find a way that suits your skills and tastes. I hardly measure spices anymore, because I know how I like my spices. The more I cook, the less I need to look at a recipe. I know why they write all those tedious steps down—I know what they’re for—and I know what to do with it all and what not to do. The baseline has been established, and from there—I get to enjoy myself and make the recipe my own.

This is an awful lot like BJJ. The moves we learn on the floor we practice step by step. We have to break our bodies into the sport, like breaking in new shoes for running. It feels awkward at first. Uncomfortable. Precision is important. Details are vital. It MATTERS that you don’t put your arm there, or that you DO keep your elbow tight—however little it makes sense at the time—just like it matters that you don’t forget to add the salt (to almost any recipe ever).

As much as the details matter, though, there is a point at which the logic BEHIND the details sinks in. The purpose in the precision becomes clear and suddenly the move stops being a series of steps and becomes a smooth, instinctive thing all its own. Even beyond that, each choke, armbar, triangle or escape stops being its own individual move and starts being—well—like ingredients actually. You use which ones you need and, if that doesn’t work, you change it up, maneuver, experiment, find out which ingredients flow together and which don’t. The point is, the drilling and detail put these ingredients at your disposal. Then you have the baseline—the right muscle memory—and you get to enjoy yourself and make it your own.

Just don’t give up or throw the whole thing (out).


P.S.  The required definitions:


Armbar: A movement or armlock which hyperextends the elbow joint. The intent in a match is to cause the opponent to "tap out" (give up). 


Choke: Yes we all know what this is, but there are several different kinds available to you in BJJ, based on which ingredient is most suited to your circumstances and tastes.


Triangle: A kind of choke which is executed with the legs (what?! Yes, the legs) forming a 'triangle' around the opponents neck in which part of the choking is accomplished by the position of their own arm. Good for long-legged types.


Escape: If any of the above are being executed on you, this is what you do. Sometimes an escape is just pure logic, but other times it's a series of movements that only makes sense after you've done it many, many times.

(This is why it's good to like and respect the people you grapple with...you will be hurting each other on occasion)