Book Beings

As much as I love my New York Football Giants and enjoy NFL Football, I have to concede that this wonderful North  American sport  is not football, it is something else.

Yes, there are punters and kickers in American football, but punts and kicks are secondary to throwing and catching and running the ball, and blocking and tackling your opponent. The vast majority of the players don’t ever touch the ball with their feet. In fact, kicking the ball intentionally if you’re not the team punter or kicker could get your team slapped with a fifteen-yard delay of game or unsportsmanlike conduct penalty.

Football, remarkably enough, is that sport played with a round ball and feet. What we in the USA call soccer is football to everyone else in the world, for obvious reasons.

As kids growing up in Newark, we distinguished between “touch” and “tackle.” We’d play touch on concrete or asphalt, and tackle when we had access to dirt or a patch of grass.

Tackle should be what the Giants play. The New York Tackle Giants of the National Tackle League (NTL). Sure, it would take some getting used to, but it would not be a bad thing for us as a nation to admit that maybe others outside our borders have got at least this one thing right.

Football is football, tackle is tackle, and soccer is? Well, surely some enterprising person could find a profitable use for the word.

The just completed 2010 FIFA World Cup tournament, grandly hosted by South Africa, has deepened my understanding and appreciation of the sport that sends nations and continents into extended periods of despair, resignation, or euphoria every four years.

Unfortunately, for the land of my birth, USA, the end came too soon. The Americans just couldn’t seem to focus hard enough in the initial stages of games and extra time to keep their opponents from scoring quickly and consistently forcing the Americans to wage the exhausting battle of playing from behind. Ghana scored in the third minute of extra time in their Round of 16 showdown, a blow from which the USA could not recover.

Happily, however, my ancestral home, Spain, recovered from a shocking opening match loss to Switzerland,  allowing just one goal from that point forward, in what amounted to six consecutive knock-out matches. The Spaniards asserted themselves as the world’s best football nation with their extra time 1-0 win over the Netherlands in the final.

For Spaniards, this first World Cup championship (only the eighth nation to win a World Cup), has at least for a time softened the harsh moment the country is experiencing with unemployment near 20% and a crippled economy. The historic accomplishment of the national team has permeated to all the corners of Spain and into the hearts of Spaniards of all the various regions of the country.

More than one will be delighted that divisive Catalán and Basque nationalist voices have been drowned out by the cries of deliriously happy and proud Spaniards in the streets of Barcelona, Bilbao, and every other city, town, and village in Spain.

Roberto Martínez, a Spaniard and Catalán (currently manager of the English Premier League team, Wigan Athletic) did a fantastic job as guest commentator for ESPN’s television coverage of all the World Cup matches. Martínez suggested the historic triumph of La Roja (“The Red,” the nickname of Spain’s national football team), would have enormous repercussions, not just for Spanish football, but for Spanish politics as well.

The model comportment and camaraderie of the Spanish players (who come from all the corners of Spain), and the dignified leadership of their coach, Vicente del Bosque, illustrated for an entire nation that unity and selflessness can accomplish great things. For the second consecutive World Cup, La Roja was awarded the FIFA Fair Play award for its noteworthy sportsmanship and humility.

We can only hope Spaniards throughout Spain will find in their national team, and not in agenda-driven politicians, a model to follow.

What is it that really matters to us? Of course the particulars differ from person to person. But I’m inclined to believe we are more alike than different.

There are commonalities among all persons, despite the fact we are perpetually at each other’s throats, and despite our diverse upbringings, during which we are forced to swallow cultural, political, and religious lies from Day 1.

I have nothing against culture, politics, or religion. I am talking about the “twisting” of these essential components of any society. I am talking about the propagation of lies throughout the history of the world, and the flip side of that, which is the suppression of truth.

Not in any systematic way over the course of centuries (I am no Dan Brown School of Perpetual Global Conspiracy disciple), but in a random, episodic fashion, whereby truth is defined according to the whim of the despot of the day.

I’m not going out on a limb here saying your average Joe and Mary (i.e., the vast majority of the world’s population) are fodder for those powerful men who govern worldly things. You have, of course, your dictators and ayatollahs, who oppress and dominate and exploit their people. But you also have your Special Interest Dictators of the Western democracies, who manipulate, lie, and cheat to obtain their ends.

And there is the trickle-down effect, evident in the person of overbearing boss, abusive husband, institutional pedophile, neighborhood bully, and others who drastically diminish and often irreparably damage the quality of life of so many ordinary persons.

But human beings are all the same in that we all want to be happy, and we want to feel that our lives have meaning. Some find a distorted type of happiness and meaning through POWER at the expense of others. But most persons would like to find happiness and meaning through relationship with others and doing good (nurturing, helping, healing, building, bridging, creating, teaching, encouraging).

Unfortunately, the former have a disproportionate influence on the quality of life of the latter. And the means by which they achieve their own toxic brand of happiness and meaning inevitably lead to war, genocide, terror, economic disaster, and personal tragedy.

Nonetheless, Average Joe’s can and do make a difference within the most trying of circumstances. We can point to generations of Christian martyrs and missionaries throughout the centuries, but every culture, political system, and religion has produced heroic men, women, and children who have shown the rest of us that what is good, beautiful, and true cannot and must not be suppressed.

These Light Bearers impart to us a precious gift: the understanding that we need not define ourselves as victims or captives or even imitators of monsters (for those who would choose the dark path as the way out of their captivity).

In fact, there is no reason we cannot be Light Bearers ourselves, for there is something (or Someone) much greater at work in each of us than the world and its Hollow Men.

The poet, Miguel Hernandez, while imprisoned during the Spanish Civil War, wrote, Ata duro a ese hombre: no le atarás el alma.  (Bind that man up hard: you shall not bind his soul.)

Which begs the question, how do you bind another person’s soul? You would need that person’s permission, it would seem.

And here is the marvelous irony: those who seek to dominate others have by their own series of choices imprisoned themselves. No one has done it to them. They have simply allowed their Weakness and Corruption to bind up and lock away their souls.

Think of it. It really is quite remarkable how it all works out, this strange order and balance of things. How is such a man (or woman) capable of having a meaningful relationship with another person? And how can he (or she) have eyes that are open to what the Light Bearers reveal, or ears to hear their Message of Freedom, when they are hell bent on trying to eradicate them?

What is it that matters most to us?

I was driving to work this morning. I am an utter, shameful fool to complain of my daily commute to work. I understand that, but when I am crawling in bumper to bumper traffic I am not at my best.

Today I was making good time, but up ahead there they were, five or six cars submissively lined up behind a stopped school bus with red lights a-flashing. I took my place behind them, resenting the yellow slug of a vehicle with its extended rickety Stop sign, and thinking, “Can I get to work once, just once, without some freakin’ delay?”

Then I saw a little boy, maybe 6 years old, running hard toward the bus, little white legs in  shorts pumping away, backpack bouncing on his little back. The bus wasn’t going to leave without him, but he was running hard anyway, determined and filled with purpose.

I felt ashamed of myself, and was flooded with memories of my own children as little students bearing impossibly large backpacks on their way to school. When the boy disappeared into the bus I turned and saw his mother. A young woman wearing checkered pajama pants and a white t-shirt, staring intently at the bus as it laboriously pulled away.

What matters to you?

Family? Meaningful relationships with other persons? Doing what is good?

I recently watched the film, The Stoning of Soraya M, a true story based on the 1994 book by the French-Iranian journalist, Freidoune Sahebjam, both of which have been banned by the Iranian government.

An Iranian woman living in a remote village (not the first, nor the last, I fear) was stoned to death because she refused to grant her husband a divorce, which would have left her and her daughters destitute. Knowing it would be impossible for Soraya to prove her innocence (as per Sharia law), her abusive husband accused her of infidelity, having already threatened and recruited a simpleton into serving as second witness. Under Sharia law, two witnesses equaled death sentence, freeing the husband to marry a younger woman.

Soraya’s aunt, Zahra (a devout Muslim and Light Bearer), managed to tell the story of what happened to her niece to the journalist, who was passing through the village on his way to the border. Both Zahra and Sahebjam risked their lives to bring Soraya’s story to the world, knowing those who live in darkness fear all light.

Absurdity and darkness go hand in hand with reason and light. The works of those with locked-away souls, as perverse and gruesome as they can be, help us to see life and the world more clearly. They force us to look at where exactly we stand. What side of the chalk line.

They prompt us to ask –

If I deny my family, if I dishonor the sanctity of life-affirming relationships, if I reject what is good, what can possibly remain of me?

Those who have crossed
With direct eyes, to death’s other Kingdom
Remember us—if at all—not as lost
Violent souls, but only
As the hollow men…

from The Hollow Men by T.S. Eliot

Love the song. Big hit by the American alternative rock band, REM, from their 1991 album, Out of Time. May seem strange coming from a man of faith, this love, someone who lost, then found his religion.

I don’t mean “religion,” as in being “religious” in the way assorted self-described “spiritual” folks interpret it (as being a stultifying, perfunctory, impersonal, shallow, superstitious, law-driven, misguided, self-serving, man-made approach to faith), but in the true original sense of the word religion, which is “belief in and worship of God” (from which the “spiritual” life emerges).

Who insists on playing around with words to gain an edge over someone or to hide himself “will never wholly kiss you” or anyone else, as E. E. Cummings pointed out. But if that is your game, you might want to consider that being “spiritual” without being “religious,” you could argue, is to exclude the “belief in and worship of God” part of faith, which would make you an atheist, yes?

We do so have to be careful with words, look into them, not through them, just like persons. Can’t jump to conclusions, can’t judge…    (just reminding myself)

When Michael Stipe sings

That’s me in the corner
That’s me in the spotlight
Losing my religion

we infer existential crisis, the absence of God, a slowly administered self-immolation.

But that’s not it, Stipe tells us. He is using the expression “losing my religion” in the way people in the South (of the USA) might use it, to mean something akin to being at the end of one’s rope. Stipe tells us the song is about a fellow suffering from a strong dose of unrequited love.

Well, that is a bad enough place to be. But we can enlarge the meaning of this song, and its impact, by pointing out that the regional expression “losing my religion” is undoubtedly rooted in some long-ago, poor soul’s cry of hopelessness that signaled the reversal or collapse of the fundamental belief that Goodness would come to him – the promise that he would be happy, that his life would come to have meaning and purpose.

All of which suggests we at least, for the moment, glance in the direction of God, who is Love, and as such, the source of all that is good and beautiful and true, which all together give meaning and purpose to our lives.

To lose your religion (whether you are a believer or not) is to become separated, is to lose all possibility of communion with others, is to lose all hope and to allow yourself to be pinned to a wall like an insect.

Stipe, unwittingly perhaps, is singing about the absence of not just a woman’s love, but of LOVE. When someone in Alabama tells you he is losing his religion, he may be complaining good-naturedly to you about his life’s difficult and annoying, but manageable, circumstances, OR he may be telling the world (or informing God) that he is losing all hope that Goodness and Happiness will dwell with him.

Certainly, losing or never having possessed or being rejected by a woman (or a man) can cause a type of trauma, but people have perennially emerged from traumas, often stronger than before and more capable of making sound decisions and acting with purpose and competence.

Broken hearts are living hearts, and living hearts always heal, even if they remain scarred. But losing God is losing yourself, going the Insect Route.

Listen to Prufrock for a moment -

And I have known the eyes already, known them all—
The eyes that fix you in a formulated phrase,
And when I am formulated, sprawling on a pin,
When I am pinned and wriggling on the wall,
Then how should I begin
To spit out all the butt-ends of my days and ways?
And how should I presume?

- from The Love Song of J Alfred Prufrock

T.S. Eliot’s 1917 poem is considerably more complex than Stipe’s “Losing My Religion,” but the similarities between the two men are noteworthy. Both are trapped in a state of anxious solitude and impotence. Both are oppressed by an intense self-consciousness that borders on paranoia.

Each is stuck in time, a grotesque prop, an object of imagined scrutiny (and ridicule?), incapable of engaging others in any meaningful, life-sharing and life-affirming way. Their focus is driven entirely inward, producing a state of being we might call Stuck On Self, or SOS for short.

When Paul McCartney, singing Eleanor Rigby, poses the question, All the lonely people, where do they all come from? he is not asking so much where they come from (what concert hall, village, planet), but how they’ve come to be SOS, gazing inward all the time and missing all the goodness, beauty and truth going around.

Some readers of Prufrock suggest Eliot was writing about man’s sense of isolation and unhappiness in the modern world. Not a stretch by any means. And it’s easy to understand why Stipe was convinced a whole lot of people would identify with the man in the corner. From the moment we are born, it really is all about us, about Me, out of necessity initially. But Life finally demands we turn our gaze outward, again out of necessity (i.e., for our own good).

John Lennon famously (though not the first to do so) proclaimed all you need is love. In fact, Love is all you need. But there is unrequited love, which can pack a vicious wallop and set you back a bit, and then there is God’s love, which is never unrequited, never limited, whimsical, manipulative, or conditional.

To know it requires turning yourself inside out, however, which isn’t that hard once you understand it all begins with a slow turn of the head, which even the most modest flower accomplishes when the sun comes calling.

Of course you can to your dying day deem God’s love the Sanctuary of Fools, and never come to know it.

Or you can step gingerly (or boldly, as either will do) out of your Self, seek His Goodness in others, accept your fool’s inheritance, grin your fool’s grin, and come to know Mercy and Goodness all the days of your life.

No, I didn’t come up with that title. Wish I had, though. David Shenk spent three years researching and writing The Genius in All of Us, and under different circumstances he may very well have listed me on his Acknowledgments page. But no…

Shenk calculated that his book was composed at the feverish pace of eight words per hour. Shenk is no Kerouac (Jack, whose mercurial writing rendered On the Road in a smattering of days), nor was he meant to be, and we should be glad for that.

As it happens, we are each of us unique, unlike anyone else in the universe. Some of us take longer to write a book than others, longer to run 100 meters, longer to solve a math problem, cook an egg, brush a tooth, file our tax returns. But that is OK, really, and I will explain why, in a moment.

(Unfortunately, too many of us are pacing around old familiar turf like dogs wearing electric shock collars. We are afraid to tread beyond our comfort zone for fear of getting zapped.)

(Understandable, yes. But clearly self-compromising.)

Now, what if that invisible electric fence that has kept you from growing as a person shorted out months ago and there is no shock to be had? Or what if someone turned it off? How would you know?

Or what if the shock, if there is one to be had, is worth enduring to break free into a new, more excellent You?

Let’s ponder for a moment. If you could be shown, scientifically, that you are far more capable of greatness than you think, would the how-when be of interest to you? Would you be willing to say, to hell with shock collars and self-compromising mediocrity! Would you summon enough desire to burst through that invisible barrier that has kept you from being great?

You may have heard that it takes 10,000 hours of practice to become a master of something. An Expert. A Guru. A Wiz. An Authority. You put in your hours and after 15 or 20 years you are the Man! Or the Woman! Right?

Well, there is a misconception here, which Shenk addresses in his book. It’s not just practice that is required. It’s deliberate practice. Big difference. Constant, daily, concentrated, grinding practice that bullies you and shoves you well beyond your feel-good  zone.

For example, imagine you want to get really fit. You’re not going to accomplish it by doing the same exercise routines day after day, week after week. After a while your muscles adjust to the demands placed on them, leading to a conditioning plateau where additional gains are no longer possible. You need to mix it up, maybe do cross-training, which doesn’t allow your muscles to get lazy and comfortable. You need to work different muscles in different ways to get really fit, you need to stretch, do aerobics, sweat, huff and puff, refrain from eating tasty crap and partying all night, etc…

Deliberate practice, whether of body or mind, never quite feels comfortable because you are always being pushed in new ways, always being challenged. Deliberate practice says to hell with plateaus, I’m climbing to the mountain top!

To hammer this point home, deliberate practice is not meant to be fun. Not meant to feel good. It is a form of ongoing trauma that triggers your survival instinct, forcing your body and mind to constantly respond to the ever-shifting bullying ghost, adjusting to overcome its demands as you climb higher and higher, for as long as it takes. In this constant adjusting new tissue, new insights, new skill sets, the New You is being forged.

So here’s the bad news: being great at something, truly great, will require much of you. Say, on the order of three hours a day of deliberate practice for ten consecutive years!

Ever watch the Olympics? Hear the stories of athletes getting up at 4:00 AM every day, training for endless hours, year after year? And what’s with those Kenyan distance runners, and those Jamaican sprinters? Shenk gets into that. Very interesting stuff.

And for those of us who always thought Mozart was just born that way, here’s what Amadeus himself had to say about that in a letter to his dad:

“People make a great mistake who think that my art has come easily to me. No one has committed so much time and thought to composition as I.”

There are countless examples of “geniuses” pointing to deliberate practice and perseverance as the bloody path to greatness.

Einstein once said, “It’s not that I’m so smart. It’s just that I stay with problems longer.”

Each failure is welcomed as a new opportunity to succeed. Just ask Thomas Edison, who insisted, “I have not failed.  I’ve just found 10,000 ways that won’t work.” Each of those ways was one step closer to figuring it all out.

Pretty grim, huh? Especially for those of accustomed to instant gratification.

That’s the bad news. Greatness does not come easy, not to anyone. The good news is that greatness can be achieved by virtually anyone! You just need to want it enough and be willing to make the necessary sacrifices to reach your goal.

Let me tell you a Rat Story. In 1958 researchers in Manitoba, Canada performed an experiment to compare the maze-negotiating prowess of high-achiever rats, and low-achiever rats. The rats were chosen from two distinct genetic strains. The Maze-Bright rats had consistently tested high in negotiating mazes over the course of several generations, whereas the Maze-Dull rats had flopped miserably for generations.

The researchers raised sets of both Maze-Bright rat pups and Maze-Dull rat pups in three different controlled environments, enriched (lots of colors, play, toys, bells, and other stimuli), normal (ordinary walls, some toys, some activity), and restricted (just food and water, nothing to stimulate mind or body, your typical rat slum).

The findings were quite remarkable. As expected, in the normal environment, the Maze-Bright rats performed well, and the Maze-Dull rats flopped. However, in both the enriched and restricted environments, the results were almost identical!

When raised in an enriched environment, “dumb” rats proved just as smart as smart rats. And when raised in a restricted environment, “smart” rats were as dumb as dumb rats. Genetic differences disappeared!

Hmm… I know we’re not rats, but a little extrapolation is in order, no?

Numerous studies in recent years show that the nature versus nurture debate really should be shelved, along with any notions of ethnic or racial superiority.

Traits are not inherited directly from our genes, nor are they determined directly by our environment, but are developed through the dynamic process of gene-environment interaction, what Shenk refers to as GxE.

Genes, which are stretches of DNA, are not finished blueprints with predesigned instructions for our various traits, as the Augustinian priest and scientist, Gregor Mendel, held, and the rest of us have maintained for well over 100 years.

Yes, all 22,000 genes direct the production of protein molecules. And yes, these proteins help to create cells, transport vital elements, and produce necessary chemical reactions in the body. And we can agree that different protein types provide the building blocks for all the mysterious substances and elements that bind our bodies together (e.g., muscle fiber, hemoglobin, collagen, and so on).

But what we need to understand is that genes are not alone in influencing protein construction. The study of Epigenetics shows that genes can be activated or deactivated by environmental stimuli such as hormones, nutrition, nerve impulses, as well as other genes.

As Shenk puts it,

“Genes are more like volume knobs and switches. Think of a giant control board inside every cell of your body. Many of those knobs and switches can be turned up/down/on/off at any time—by another gene or by any miniscule environmental input.”

This flipping and turning of gene-knobs begins at the moment of conception and continues throughout a person’s life, to the moment of death. This process of gene-environment interaction “drives a unique developmental path for every unique individual.”

You cannot control everything that happens in your life, of course, but you do have a much bigger say in who you can become and what you can achieve than previously thought.

The Genius in All of Us, by David Shenk, contains life-changing power between its covers. It is a powerful testament to the uniqueness, promise, and dignity of each and every human being.

If you have always perceived yourself to be a Maze-Dull human, find yourself an enriched environment within which you can flourish and make the commitment to being the most excellent person you can be. No one, not you nor I, nor your dull, uninspired neighbor, is doomed to mediocrity.

One way to make friends with the very rich is to show everyone else that the very rich are victims. The way to accomplish this is by withholding pertinent information and by misleading those that are not very rich.

In fiction, withholding necessary information from the reader and misleading him is self-destructive behavior by any author. Such an approach announces to the world that the author is a) grossly incompetent; b) a phony; c) a propagandist; or d) any or all of the above.

Good literature respects its audience. A writer who wishes to be read, if he is honest with himself, desires that his reader be someone who will put some thought into what he has written. He writes in such a way that the possibility of connecting with another in an honest way is possible. Any deception vanquishes that possibility.

To the writer, the act of writing is a gift to himself, but it is also a gift to the reader. And like any gift we give, we should not attempt to control the recipient’s response. (How can we possibly do that, unless we are close-minded bullies? The uniqueness of each human being produces unique responses. We cannot impose our will over another, whether by force or deception, without giving up our humanity.)

The writer conceives his words and then sends them forth, like a mother her children. A  reader may choose to receive his words with a clear and open mind, but it matters little whether the reader likes or dislikes or accepts or rejects the writer’s words, or remains unmoved or indifferent. That is not the writer’s concern. Nor should it be. Good writing is as simple as honesty. And too often honesty is missing from writing.

Here is a recent example of dishonesty in journalism. I am no Socialist, nor am I a disciple of Ayn Rand. I have no allegiance to any political party. I do not believe anyone should restrict how much money anyone else can earn, as long as it is earned legally and without exploiting others. But I am weary of hearing people proclaim how unjustly the very rich are treated in this country, and how the rich are going to move to another country and take their money and jobs with them, leaving us financial orphans…

I received a link to an article sporting the provocative title, “Tax Burden of Top 1% Now Exceeds That of Bottom 95%” by Scott A. Hodge of taxfoundation.org. The article was published last July, but the attitude it represents seems to have permeated the national consciousness, particularly since the presidential election of the Democrat, Barack Obama.

This simple graph was presented as evidence:

A Disturbing Trend (to Some)

Long ago a friend of mine in high school was taking a Statistics course. He referred to it as “a royal pain in the ass.” Nothing remarkable about that, as most high school courses were described in that way, but I do remember him quoting his teacher:  “Statistics can be manipulated to make any point you want.”

These words were a stark revelation to my teenaged brain! You can use words to do the same. But if deception is your aim, then you discredit yourself. And if you do so publicly, you lose professional credibility. A few minutes examining the actual IRS data the writer cited to add legitimacy to his point reveals a more balanced picture.

The IRS numbers actually demonstrate how the very rich, the top 1% of Americans in terms of average gross income, would be utter fools to leave the US for another country! The IRS charts show all types of data from 1980 to 2007. During that time, the income of the top 1% increased by about 300%, and their tax rate in 2007 was the lowest during that 27-year span.

Those facts were conveniently omitted by the writer. Why? Because they contradict the point he is making.

The top 1% are not being singled out unjustly. In fact, the very opposite could be argued.  The rest of us should be so unjustly treated! The portion of the total national gross income of the top 1% went from 8% in 1980 to 23% in 2007! That means the percentage of gross income for the rest of us went down over that period, from 92% to 77%.

Where is the outcry? The wringing of hands? The fact is the “tax burden” of the very rich (if you insist on calling it that), will continue to increase as their percentage of the national gross income, or their piece of the American Pie, increases.

That is just basic math. And math doesn’t lie. Neither should writers.

You can see the actual IRS numbers here.

Ereaders? Where was I when the Areaders, Breaders, Creaders, and Dreaders of the world raised their ugly little heads?

I have to admit I’ve become increasingly fond of technology, insofar as it allows me to see, understand, and know more of life and, consequently, how little of it I do see, understand, and know… the realization of which just makes me teeter like a happy drunk before the awesome Mystery and Bigness of Creation.

But it took me a while to get into the whole Computer Thing, but by the time the Internet came on the scene I was ready and willing to be mesmerized by the possibilities it presented and to quickly enlist the information-gathering prowess of Google.

Don’t know Something? Google it. Now part of the lexicon. Within seconds you know as much or more about Something than most folks on the planet. So I Googled “eReaders” and found them to be, not another race of beings, but a tantalizing temptation.

So what the heck is an eReader, and are eReaders suitable for Book Beings?

Let’s explore a little. Just to get a clear picture of what we’re dealing with here.

An eReader is a portable electronic device that allows you to read eBooks. eBooks are electronic books, also known as digital books. Think of them as paperless books that can be read off a computer screen or the screen of a hand-held device created for that purpose (e.g., an eReader).

For someone who loves the texture, weight, feel, scent, and color of real books, eReaders can seem a bit stiff. The idea of curling up with an eReader hasn’t yet sunk in. Would you rather, for example, curl up with a human or a Cylon?

(Digression: For those of you who don’t know what a Cylon is, you owe it to yourself to buy or rent the 4.5 seasons of Battlestar Galactica, the award-winning science fiction series, starring James Olmos as Adama.)

Yes, if I am going to recline and enjoy a good book, it will be a real book with real pages that my fingers can touch and turn. But if I am traveling, or foraging, or gathering, or if I just want to have with me my own library of books that I can summon up onto my little hand-held device, then I’m going to go with the eReader. Do you have a bag large enough to carry 1500 books around? That is the initial capacity of most eReaders (capacity can be increased through optional memory cards).

This is not a question of choosing one over the other. Real flesh and blood books can coexist happily with ereaders, and being a Book Being, I can feed my hunger for books more completely by possessing both.

Think of the eBooks that appear on eReaders as virtual books or avatars of those beloved real books of yours that it’s not always practical to have with you. (If you were far away for a long, long time, on the Moon, say, and you could not bring your loved one with you, wouldn’t an avatar of your loved one help, somewhat?)

Just as there are different kinds of books, there are different kinds of eReaders with varying features and price tags. And more are being developed all the time.

The most popular and best eReaders share the following features:

• Portable and compact, with most eReader models being less than an inch thick and are available in 5, 6, or 8 inch sizes.
• Capacity to hold up to 1,500 books. Thousands of additional books can be added with the use of memory cards.
• eBooks can easily be downloaded from a number of online venues.
• E-Ink technology allows for a clear, paper-like display.
• Some have built in MP3 players.
• Some read to you.
• Long-lasting rechargeable batteries.

Given all this, are eReaders suitable for Book Beings? Any tool that makes more books easily accessible to the everyday person is good for Book Beings and for all. So I say, Yes! By all means!

And your response?

So say we all!

(If this response troubles, perplexes, irks you, I entreat you to watch Battlestar Galactica, not the old Lorne Greene series, but the James Olmos award-winning series – the opening scene of the series will captivate you, guaranteed).

I will be looking at the various types of eReaders in more depth as we go along. If you want to check some of these out for yourself, go to Amazon. They started this all with their Kindle Wireless Reading Device.

But you’ll find all kinds of eReaders and digital readers there, not just the Amazon Kindle. Amazon has always been the best place to look for books. Now it’s the best place to buy any number of different products. You can compare thousands of items and products, read real customer reviews, and make informed decisions about whether to buy Something or not.

Lennon and McCartney had an almost effortless ability to create something new and interesting from disparate themes, images and sounds. Their infectious energy and awesome brilliance still make me laugh.

And despite Maxwell’s Silver Hammer ineluctably falling down on all our heads one day, the Lads shined a light of wonder that made us like the world and each other and the idea that all you need is love, despite all the incomprehensibilities that separate us.

Unfortunately, our experience of life is colored too much by the unoriginal and mundane. Though Popular Culture embraced the Beatles (and their prowess for generating money for the many), more often than not PC’s predictable, formulaic stories hashed out in books, music, art, film, and TV have given us a New Mediocrity in which to stew.

Maybe that’s the place most of us like to be and the language we speak best. Ratings, Best Seller Lists, Top 40, Box Office seem to suggest as much.

Sure, if we seek diligently we can extract a good from anything, ascribe a good to anyone. If, if, if we try. And we should.

But heck, do we need to be reassured all the time, like 5-year-olds marching off to first day of kindergarten? Do we need to consistently be granted smug expectations? Is it so bad to be challenged and provoked by fresh insights, moral dilemmas, unforeseen circumstances, unthinkable choices and outcomes? Would it be the end of us to see through someone else’s eyes on occasion?

I’m talking about pushing against walls. Or climbing them. Because LIFE IS BIG!

Jim Morrison sang, Break on through to the other side. My other side might be different from Jim’s, and yours from mine. But are we destined or meant to only know what we already know?

Nah, don’t think so. But that’s a question each one has to ask himself…

So I begin to think in Walrus terms. Not John Lennon. Not J.D. Salinger. But the Collective Walrus (or Walrus Collective). A mass of Walri? Being as One, and massed against the rocks.

And I see Polar Bear, singular and hungry as he lumbers onto the scene. And I’m thinking, “Ah, man, the baby walri…”

But Collective Walrus is thinking Polar Bear = Threat, and that mountain of shifting, wobbling gray matter whirls to face it. In moments all the young disappear behind a blubber wall sprouting imperial tusks.

PB hesitates, discerning no easy target, then hurls himself upon CW (or WC), targeting a small female that, shockingly, is larger than he.

It is then you sense the tragedy that is about to unfold. Off balance and unable to pierce the thick skin, PB is forced to withdraw for the moment. Nervous random tusks have inflicted first wounds.

PB studies the situation. It is most problematic. He appears small now against the immense excited males with their coarse tusks and immovable bulks. They are easily twice his size, and massed together they are daunting. He paces about and targets a new victim. Again he falls upon a female, but soon withdraws, collecting fresh wounds.

Only desperate, starving polar bears will challenge the Walrus Collective, the narrator grimly offers. Sobered by recognition and understanding, my sympathies shift.

Time and again PB falls upon one of the smaller walruses, but each time with less conviction. Finally, exhausted and severely wounded, PB circles a patch of ice like a tired dog selecting a place to rest, and gingerly curls himself into Death.

Just feet beyond the dying animal, the Walrus Collective have already forgotten their adversary and resumed their patient routines, la-de-dah.

J.D. Salinger died recently at 91. He fought in the Battle of the Bulge as a young soldier and suffered a nervous breakdown in 1945. He wrote The Catcher in the Rye and a number of stories about members of the Glass family, those brilliant, preoccupied folks, and then dropped out of the world.

Of course what Salinger endured and witnessed in War changed him, his mind, his dreams and visions, his approach to relationship, his view of others and God. It affected his artistic choices, what he chose to write and how he wrote it.

Hapworth 16, 1924 was Salinger’s last published story. It appeared in The New Yorker magazine in 1965. He went to live in a secluded rural area of New Hampshire, provoking various characterizations from Society, among them coward, recluse, and grump.

Now there’s talk (based on letters to a friend) that he wrote regularly during his extended sabbatical, beginning at 6:00 each morning. (Hooray!)

You could say we all, in good standing with Society or not, are destined to face the Collective Walrus one way or another.

Trying to get what we need to keep going vocationally, artistically, psychically, biologically, financially is a foregone conclusion, no? Getting wounded in the process, falling down, getting up, falling down, becoming invisible, forgotten, all foregone, yes?

(Your point being?)

There is the Rising, see, for those who believe, see. And for those who don’t believe too, see, because unbelief is another form of belief, yes?

Can’t wait to see where Salinger has yet to take us.

Who the hell do you think you are?

Can’t place it, the moment or location, but hasn’t just about everyone been asked this question in this precise way some time in his life? Maybe it was in Spanish, in my case. Or maybe it was a rhetorical question, directed by a frustrated elder or superior at not just me but those around me as well, the Captive Collective (e.g., classroom, military barracks, locker room, office, church…).

Who do you think you are? sans “the hell” can appear less accusatory, though I’m betting most times it’s not. How often, for example, have you heard a forthright person earnestly ask another, Who do you think you are?

Completely stripped of challenge, hostility, resentment, accusation? Not often, I wouldn’t think.

So, let this then, possibly, be the first time for you. I ask you (warmly and earnestly, if rhetorically, but with only good intentions), Who do you think you are?

There are teeming hordes itching to answer it for you. You are a heathen to some, an infidel to others. A saint, a pig, a rodent, a luminary. You may very well be all things to all people.

Like Jesus, for instance. What must have gone through his mind as the apostles apprised him of the many identities the speculating populace had ascribed to him.

Jesus asked Peter, Who do you say I am?

Couldn’t control what others thought. But Jesus thought it important for Peter to know for himself who he thought Jesus was.

Important because for some, the answer to that question is the answer to the first question. If you believe Jesus is the Son of God (i.e., one with God the Father and thus God Himself), then you know who you are.

What you believe is who you are, whether you are Christian or not. And if the words you speak are what you believe – if they are an integral part of you, not to be separated from your very flesh – then your word is who you are.

The problem with imposing on someone else a who-you-are-ness, a you-are-a-heathen, you-are-an-infidel, a saint, a pig, a rodent, a luminary, is that you are showing the world a who-you-are in so cross-eyed, unfocussed, and self-defeating a manner that you become lost to yourself.

This was Saul’s (i.e., Paul’s) problem on his way to Damascus to persecute Christians. He got so cross-eyed and unfocused that he went blind, for a time, and became lost. But being lost is not the worst condition, if later found.

If you are what you believe and what you say, and if you say another is this or that, and your word is who you are, then who you are could be a shrill cry, or an angry shout, or maybe even an ass kiss, depending on where you are coming from.

Or at least that is who you are until you take a much closer look at yourself (myself) and find the center that holds everything together and from which all good springs.

Otherwise we are falling men. Still. Paradise Lost and counting…

Speaking of which…

Don DeLillo’s post-9-11 novel, Falling Man, touches the sky and drills down into our well of being and who-we-are-ness with ancient questions about life and death, and whether any of this means anything and whether God is.

This Inescapable Planet where things get hairy, a Vale of Tears to some, the ultimate Cosmic Cruelty to others. Sometimes the world roars too loud and is too big and jagged and rough and who we are is bled down to feeble word-breaths by disoriented, ash-covered survivors: I am standing here. I am standing here. I am standing here.

This Inescapable Irony of people praying God help us kill them and God don’t let them kill us.

Different people, same God. In fact, one God.

DeLillo unfurls the performing artist known as Falling Man:

A man was dangling there, above the street, upside down. He wore a business suit, one leg bent up, arms at his sides. A safety harness was barely visible, emerging from his trousers at the straightened leg and fastened to the decorative rail of the viaduct. He’d appeared several times in the last week, unannounced, in various parts of the city, suspended from one or another structure, always upside down, wearing a suit, a tie and dress shoes. He brought it back, of course, those stark moments in the burning towers when people fell or were forced to jump.

As earnestly as you or I may ask such a reckless, outrageous, crazed, attention-starved man (or is he an avatar? an angel?), Who do you think you are?

Should we?  What happened to Who do we think we are?

We judge, we judge, inescapably…  (Why not accept he is what he believes and is the word he speaks in Silence?)

If I am hearing him right, the Falling Man, Silence is the language we all should master on the off-chance of genuinely hearing one another unencumbered by shrill cries, angry shouts, and maybe even ass kisses, should that be the case.

My parents couldn’t speak, read or write English when I was a toddler, and being a first-born child and having no other siblings to read books to me or other family or neighbors to read to me, it wasn’t until First Grade that I got hold of my first real book in my nervous little hands and learned to read reading it.

I don’t remember the title, or what the cover looked like, but I do remember Ted and Sally and Grandfather and ducks and red truck, and I have to admit I have yet to outgrow the imagery and its promise. I had my own little Sally baby sister, adored my very own Grandfather (a starkly different man from the jovial, somewhat self-satisfied Farmer Grandpa), and was or became a devoted lover of animals, trees, the good earth, perhaps to a fault in the opinion of some, but having been raised in a working class urban area with apartment houses stuck side by side may have a bit to do with that.

I ask myself: Was it that first book that made me the man I am? Or was I already who I was going to be regardless, and TedSally-GrandfatherFarm-RedTruck were simply reflecting back to me who I was becoming? Furthermore, was the happy encounter/bonding between that book’s imagery and who I was developing into at six what caused me to become the book being I am today?

Questions, questions…

Some would argue we’re all supposed to be farmers. They’ll point to those vocation tests we’ve all taken at some time or other, in grade school or high school or online nowadays. Based on results, just about everyone I know is suited to be a farmer, would be good at it, would feel it a fulfilling life worthy to be lived.

The good earth. Simple folks are us (we, if you prefer). Reaping and sowing. Sun, sweat. Harvest moons.

I do think there is something to this. In the movie, Gladiator, Maximus (aka the Spaniard) couldn’t wait to leave Caesar’s far flung endless battlefields and get the heck back home to his farm in Spain. The man was an accomplished killing machine, an esteemed officer in Caesar’s armies. All fine and good, but he wanted to go home to be a farmer.

A former Notre Dame football coach once said men are called to be warriors. It is in their DNA, or some such thing (I am paraphrasing). This propensity to compete, to wage combat, apparently, suits men perfectly to be Soldiers of Christ (what Catholic children become upon completing the sacrament of Confirmation).

This has nothing to do with the Crusades or fighting Islam. This has to do with fighting the powers of darkness, the principalities of evil, wherever and whoever. The language is colorful and useful to some extent. (Where would Michael the Archangel be without his sword?)

But if we are not alert, the language can distort who we are.

Spent New Year’s Eve evening in the movie theater with my bride watching the movie Avatar. Lots of fighting there too, but what caught my attention was an elaborate heroic marketing video selling young people on joining the National Guard that was shown before the movie.

Now I have no problem with anyone joining any branch of our Armed Forces, but this lengthy movie-quality advertisement, unfortunately, reeked of propaganda. All of the branches of the military have produced such videos. They appeal to what is noble in us, and particularly in the young, who are trying to find out who they are and evaluating their self worth on a daily basis.

And what, say you, is wrong with this? It is dishonest. The video is a heat seeking missile that targets what is most alive in its destination, in this case the hearts and illusions of young men and women. It fails to honor their dignity as human beings by denying them truth, or at least some kind of balance.

The truth is that, yes, you can do great things as a soldier. You can defend and help and build. But you can also attack, kill, and destroy. And you can suffer emotional trauma for the rest of your life. And you can do horrible things you thought you were incapable of doing. And you can smell the stench of rotting corpses and walk among the ruins that were once people’s homes. And you can have your life consumed by all that would destroy your mind and soul.

Or maybe not.

Some are called to be soldiers? Maybe. If they are, they will find their way to where they need to be. But for those who are not called to be soldiers, and that is the vast majority of men and women, full disclosure would seem the honorable thing to do. Let the young make informed decisions. Manipulation sends the wrong message.

I do not believe men are born warriors. I do believe most of us are born lovers, like the Man-God, Jesus. If you want to use military language to invest what is being said with greater substance, so that it becomes more real to you, so be it.

Some Christians use the term prayer warrior to identify their role in the war against evil. Fine, just remember the difference between the metaphor and the real. Keep language in perspective. Are we called to kill or bring about life? Destroy or build?

The shivering, exhausted soldier pressed against a rock during night guard duty in a remote outpost is missing his loved ones and his home. He is dreaming of long, peaceful, if somewhat uneventful days. Of simple pleasures, maybe even quiet boredom. Does a man lying in bed with his wife pine for the windswept outposts of distant forsaken lands?

Life always, and all that nurtures and engenders life. Are we all closet farmers? The farm is a place of life. The battlefield is a place of death. Things on a farm rise up. Things on a battlefield fall.

Ted and Sally gave way to The Muddy Road to Glory, some years later. A young boy caught up in the Civil War. The boy took me away from the farm, set me on a long path of delusion for a time, but I’ve my red truck now, and my acre of land.

Until this past Christmas I had never given the innkeeper who offered his stable for the night much thought or what Joseph occupied himself with the days immediately after the birth of Jesus. It stands to reason that Jesus, Mary and Joseph didn’t go anywhere for at least a few days after the birth and Joseph, being a carpenter, may have employed his skills on behalf of the innkeeper to pay for lodging and food. Or maybe he placed a few coins in the innkeeper’s hand and spent hours by Mary’s side as she slept and tended the infant.

In any case the New Testament proclaims the Good News of Salvation in Jesus Christ, who is the Second Person of the Holy Trinity, and who also happens to be fully Divine and fully Human. To be frank, the Trinitarian dogma of one God in three persons is probably as equally confounding as the Man-God notion.

Some years ago a well meaning Muslim acquaintance shook his head at me, questioning my sanity: but how is it you believe in three gods, there is only one!

How can I explain? I pleaded. We are in agreement! There is only one God, and he is God in Three Persons, but yes, one God nonetheless.

Not something you can depict with hand signals. And it’s pointless to try to explain. Likewise, to suggest God, or to be more precise, the Second Person of the Triune God is fully Divine and fully Human, is not to invite agreement or debate. It is simply to point to Mystery.

I don’t pretend to understand the Trinity, or how it is that the Second Person of the Trinity simultaneously possesses a Divine nature and a Human nature. I leave those discussions to the theologians.

I’ve come to accept there are things I cannot possibly understand. That doesn’t mean they are not true. What I do know is that the Gospels of Matthew, Mark and Luke speak to us about everyday people in everyday situations. An innkeeper, a pregnant teen, a cripple, a Roman soldier, a leper, a rich man, a prostitute, a tax collector, some good folks, some bad.

They are us (we, if you insist). No one is left out.

The Gospel reading for Christmas Mass was the beginning of John:In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.

Have there ever been more perplexing words?

If we come to accept, though we may not understand, that Jesus is the Second Person of the Holy Trinity, and that Jesus is fully Divine and fully Human, it shouldn’t be a stretch to accept that  Jesus is the Word of God…

Come again? Look, I have no qualms about leaving the finer points of Divinity studies to the theologians, but what matters most out of all of this, it seems to me, is that the Word was made flesh and dwelled among us.

Some years back Joan Osborne’s song, “What If God Was One of Us” rankled some believers  who took offense to the line “just a slob like one of us,” in reference to Jesus. But aren’t we, when compared to God, slobs, and didn’t Jesus become one of us? Yes, fully Divine, but fully Human as well, though sinless (we really shouldn’t have any illusions about ourselves – just look around).

Was Ms Osborne being a wise ass? I don’t know. Just stylistics or tone I would think. Like my using “being a wise ass” rather than, say, “being unnecessarily provocative.”

Was her way of putting it necessary? Was mine? What is necessary in writing? How do you say what you want to say so that the reader gets more? Here is my take: Ms Osbourne was not being so much unnecessarily provocative as she was being a wise ass (in the opinion of some), just as God was not being so much a man/woman like us as much as a slob like us (which I read as a commentary on us, not God).

If you are writing truthfully, you are using words for the purpose of saying what you want to say, not for the purpose of offending or praising anyone. People get offended or praised in their own heads without your knowledge or consent anyway.

The point is too many people missed the point of that song. I’ll give you a somewhat ridiculous example to help clarify: Imagine a human loving ants so much that in order to communicate his love for them in a way they could understand, lowered himself and took the form of an ant, and dwelled among ants, eating ant food, sleeping ant sleep, communicating in ant, living an ant life and dying an ant death. Is God, then, to man as man is to ant? Probably not. More like God is to man as man is to dust mote, or better, whatever single infinitesimal speck of nothingness converges with others like it to form a dust mote.

Knee-jerk reactions betray insecurity and weak belief foundations. Too many folks have it all figured out. That is, too many folks will argue you into heaven or hell with words that mean nothing because they lack substance. They have no flesh to them. They are not an intrinsic part of the person who speaks them.

In the beginning was the Word. And the Word was made flesh. How could God not become flesh? Truth is not about words. It is about the Word made flesh and the incontrovertible bond between what we say and who we are.

And Faith is the greatest Mystery. With all due respect, we’re not dissecting Plato here. Nor Saint Thomas Aquinas. Ants among dust motes, maybe, but still ants.

How to approach the Word of God other than by faith? Agreed, Science, though limited, can reveal something of God’s glory to us. And faith and reason go hand in hand, but in this way I think – reason suggests to us that only faith can draw us nearer to God.