Ray Evans Harrell wrote:
>
> Brad,
>
> Here is where we part the ways. You are totally Christian in your lack of
> a sense of place.(whether you truly be Christian or not. That is not an
> accusation but a statement of style) This is the Eternal Traveler of
> Marcel, the nomad forever, the Gypsy on the road.
I guess I am a Christian in the sense of Christ's words that
the beasts of the fields have their lairs and the birds their
nests but the son of man has no place to rest his weary head.
I have always been in a state of Heimatlosigheit, although I also
understand "home" in a different way than the ordinary sentimental
stuff:
"...the root of history is the working, creating human
being who reshapes and overhauls the given facts. Once he has grasped
himself and established what is his, without expropriation and
alienation, in real democracy, there arises in the world something
which shines into the childhood of all and in which no one has yet
been: homeland." (Ernst Bloch)
> The battle between the
> Traveling Irish of TooGood who is angry with her child and so beats him in
> her Mercedes SUV. I believe you need to be more tolerant. There are
> spiritualities like Judaism and Islam that are based in place and there are
> others like Buddhism and Christianity that are not. Some people are
> Nomads and must wander forever and others must put their feet in the ground.
> To deny one or the other the centering of their existence is to create
> eternal hell for either. What is one man's good works is another's
> arrogance whether they see it or not.
>
> Does God's little acre truly travel? I wonder? Not for me. That is
> why we die so easily in prison.
[snip]
The irony of all this it that I am not at all a peripatetic.
I like the settled life. I would like to have had a parental
home from birth in which I could have stored neatly everything
in my life. As it is, I have almost nothing, not even my books,
from before 1985. And the possessions I do have I am always
in fear of losing because I do not have sufficient capitalization
to have a safe place to keep them.
This is one of the reasons I "collect" only a very few very small
things, so that I could carry them with me if necessary (alas books
are big). My best piece of pottery could fit in a coat pocket, etc.
The other way I deal with this is that wherever I temporarily
quasi-settle, I start turning the place into a Merzbau.
Peregrinatio in stabilitate.
No, I am not a nomad. But I have been forced to
move a lot. I have adapted.
I simply cannot imagine a clod of earth worth dying for
unless it had was the only place I could get some material
resource that was necessary for the social and cultural
life which has value to me, and, if that's not possible,
then I am prepared to accept that I can't have what
I want or need.
No, Ray, I am not a nomad. I am an exile. To quote
a manager I had once:
They let me off at the wrong stop when I was born.
(He was speaking about himself, but it also applies to me.)
\brad mccormick
--
Let your light so shine before men,
that they may see your good works.... (Matt 5:16)
Prove all things; hold fast that which is good. (1 Thes 5:21)
<![%THINK;[SGML+APL]]> Brad McCormick, Ed.D. / [EMAIL PROTECTED]
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