A Brief Word about the Election (Before and After)
Keep in mind throughout that we are not each others enemy.
We will be the same people that we are now when
the election is
over and done. Lets decide in advance to maintain our civility,
our equanimity and our companionship with one another. -- Bill Joyner
If
Only in Our Dreams
Green holly branches, loaded with red berries,
stand amid leafless elms, upon whose heights
clumps of mistletoe cling. Icy streams meander through light patches of snow back in the
woodlands. The chickadees chirp with delight.
-- BJ
The Gospel does not call man to return to a previous stage of his
development. It does not
summon man back to dependence, awe, and religiousness. Rather, it is a call to imaginative
urbanity and creative secularity. Harvey Cox
Good old down to earth human love, what could be more holy than that! -- BJ
We can do anything we want to do if we stick to it long enough. Helen
Keller
Somewhere along the way, I gave up that easy familiarity with God and, in fact, came to regard it as something of an outrageous human presumption. Nowadays, I dont trust the idea of talking to God as if he were a bosom buddy. There are too many examples of people assuming that whatever they feel, however vile or misguided, is a divine revelation of some kind. Maybe thats why the biblical Hebrews avoided speaking the name of God directly by using code words like Elohim to designate the all holy one. It might also be why some in the Orient advise those who speak the name of Buddha to wash out their mouths. In any case, I am at home with the ambiguity of divinity.
-- Bill Joyner
The Seed Catalog / November & December 2004
Bill Joyner / P.O. Box 3411 / Sarasota. FL 34230
Love your neighbor as yourself, suggests the necessity for certain prerequisites: self-respect, self-trust, self-love and self-realization. Such qualities are the basis of our ability to effectively connect with each other and with the world. Love is the key!
Bill Joyner
The never-ending quest for absolute temporal and eternal security is not only a vain,
useless pursuit; it is a contradiction of reality and of true faith, as well as the seedbed of
poisonous fanaticism. In his fascinating little book, "The Wisdom of Insecurity", Alan
Watts makes the case for an alternate orientation. As Philip Wheelwright says of the book
and its contents. "The wisdom of insecurity is not a way of evasion, but of carrying on
wherever we happened to be stationed. . . . It is a philosophy not of nihilism but of the
reality of the present.
"Faith, Certainty and the Presidency of George W. Bush" is the title of a very revealing
article by Ron Suskind in the New York Times of October 17, 2004. He concludes his
piece with this statement by Jim Wallis: "Faith can cut so many ways. if you are penitent
and not triumphal, it can move us to repentance and accountability and help us reach for
something higher than ourselves, That can be a powerful thing, a thing that moves us
beyond politics as usual, like Martin Luther King did. But when it's designed to certify
our righteousness - that can be a dangerous thing. Then it pushes self-criticism aside.
There is no reflection. . . . Real faith leads us to deeper reflection and not - not ever - to
the thing we humans so very much want. Easy certainty."
I absorb the New York Times almost daily, as you might suspect, and here is a related
item from an Op-Ed appreciation of the philosophical deconstructionist, Jacques Derrida,
by his friend Mark C. Taylor, in the 10-14-04 edition: " . . . we live in an age when major
conflicts are shaped by people who claim to know, for certain, that God is on their side.
Mr. Derrida reminded us that religion does not always give clear meaning, purpose and
certainty by providing secure foundations. To the contrary, the great religious traditions
are profoundly disturbing because they call certainty and security into question. Belief
not tempered by doubt poses a mortal danger.
Phone (323) 466-2157 / Fax (323) 466-2150 /
email [email protected]
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This is an approximately 50-page volume of my current and retrospective writings, embellished with pertinent quotations and the evocative, surrealistic cartoon art of Chris Browne. The exact amount for which the book will be offered has not yet been calculated, but if you wish to send a donation of $15 per advance copy to me at THE SEED CATALOG and specify your request on the following form, Ill do my best to get it out to you before Christmas!
Introduction
I have always envisioned this wild collection of flowering conceptions as
some kind of a book, although it morphed, almost immediately upon birth,
into a newsletter to friends, known as THE SEED CATALOG. The book that now
is to be unveiled is largely a distillation of that thirty-year-long
adventure in self-publishing.
The style and design of THE CELESTIAL CIRCUS is inspired by Marshall
McLuhans celebration of simultaneous happenings and non-linear
communication. Structural cohesion is, nevertheless, a requisite component
of beauty and reality; and so I have tried to weave together the diverse
elements of this circus of spiritual discovery with narrative threads from
my own experience. The finished work may be enjoyed at random or in entirety
as the composite record of one persons quest for a viable faith.
-- Bill Joyner
The Seed
Catalog
William T. Joyner, Editor
THE SEED CATALOG is available by
mail for an annual suggested donation of $5.00
-- or any expression of interest. I try to do at least 6 issues a year. Thanks
for tuning in!
--Bill Joyner / P.O. Box 3411 / Sarasota, FL 34230
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