beauty is...

hang it all, rogers. that sweater is a beaut!

beauty is a face that makes ships sail, or a meal that makes mouths water. it's pretty much anything that makes anyone yell: "hang it all, that's beautiful!"

...unless that person is rolling. or on the tele (we can't trust the broadcasts these days).

beauty is a pageant winner or a mountain range (or a pageant-winning mountain range). beauty is anything that drunk people encounter on the way back from the bars to their vehicles. beauty is mozart. and maybe lady gaga. [link for adventurous readers]

so beauty is a descriptor that we attribute to the deeply attractive aspects of reality; is this plus that. maybe, but i've been starting to think that my preconceived addition-based notions of reality don't describe it quite very well...

is beauty really the sum of the parts working together so... that... nothing... is lacking? that seems rather shallow; kinda sounds like something you could get through an s.a.t. question with, no problem. but what is beauty? and what isn't it?

help me out here guys.

my conversation with the ant-eaters

photo by @ellasdad

i am so ever-presently tiring of fashionability...

perhaps one thing that i'm missing is some perspective on myself and my mini-culture (mmm... sounds like a great pita stand), my macro-culture, time-space, infinitive-tense spider-sense reality. yeah?

so, what is real... and what is creative?

are the thoughts that populate the greatest minds creative, or only those in the lesser minds that are articulated in a fashionable fashion?

can i fashion something mentally and happen to fasten my passion sentimentally to an unexpressed something inside me?

oh, probably.

either way: you, the reader, are probably wondering what i'm toking about now.

however, as the God of the universe probably didn't say,"go forth My son, and leave big slobbery suction rings on every dashboard you find!"

no He didn't, and probably might not likely say that! what of it?

time is imaginary, culture is arbitrary and this question of God's will is going to be a lot harder than i had previously thought.

i love my ducks

the lecture reduced to an exhibition for blatantly unsupported statements affirming and championing this-or-that sociopolitical agenda and sharply ridiculous criticisms of contemporary political and religious figures.

"learning" presented as the science of the articulation and defense of whatsoever avant-garde pseudo-philosophical and nominally scientific doctrine one's academic superiors shall force-feed him or her.

a politically and ideologically homogenous student body that genuinely believes that the only thing to riot about is football.

a hyper-educated populous with no concept of authentic debate.

an ever-expanding generation of lifelong idealists with dystrophic intellects.

a vast army of endemically complacent soldiers of the future, ever-inclined to narrowing their ever-decaying and atrophied minds.

this is diversity at its most hypocritical, a framework for activism at its most frivolous, the pinnacle of narcissistic monoculturalism. the institution known as the public university presents a nuisance to its constituents, an eyesore to its critics and a challenge to its clients. can it be salvaged?

shakespeared!

yeah, babe.

everyone is blogging today. sorry you guys, i don't have the time to read them all. for now, i'm going to sketch out a little of what i'm thinking:

- for one thing, it has been sunny now for two days. except when andrew hippie and i went out to look at the stars last night and the sky was covered by certain stratus clouds (you know who you are).

- and then there's this concept of essences being mutually exclusive, of people being independent, unique and distinguishable, which shakespeare blows out of the water... except apparently people don't take shakespeare so seriously anymore. so social fungibility advances, while unique and valuable personhood is forced into the uncomfortable margins of religious sensibility. gross.

- the good news is, i didn't watch the news. too much negativity, i think. my [gmo] bread and [rbst enhanced] butter optimism doesn't require that i comprehend or even read the labels (and i mean that literally too).

- even better, someone somewhere (aztecs? gwc?) invented peanut butter. the knowledge of peanut butter (is the wonder) has been spread far and wide with the butterknife of collective information technologies. notwithstanding an imminent apocalypse, the world will never be the same.

as ever,

joel

of january-winter-springs

Spirit, if You breathe with the sunnycold breeze
of the morning
give me skin to feel You.
give me toes to understand
what kind of mud is always settling
in the yes-spring-puddles of You. please
give me fingertips to touch Your greatgreenglowing leaves.
come make me shiver, but don't let me suddenfreeze
in the quick-frozen, slow-thawing universe of these.

oh, Spirit! let my body sing
of january-winter-springs,
of seasons soaked in sun to savor,
today's and never maybe later's!

oh, Spirit! if You, in passing, brush back my hair and whisper gently in my ear,
give me eyes to shut real tight and give me ears to hear.

poem, jan. 24 by joeldevyldere

"tree in fog" by andrew

tonight

photo by @respres

there's been a lot of talk about God. alot of speculation and almost as much surefire preachin'. i don't want to add to that tonight. speculation is fine, and maybe even indoctrination, but...

we are; you and i are in the middle of this. let us not waste our opportunities.

"he who has ears let him hear! the kingdom of heaven is among you! I AM the Bread Who came down from heaven... he who drinks of the water that I give will not grow thirsty again."

and so i came to Him, sippin' on that living water, and i lay back in His lap. ("let the little children come to Me... for their's is the kingdom of heaven.") and i rested a while. ("come to ME all who are weary and I will give you rest.")

grace is sufficiency. that's the truth i'm coming in every situation to know. but since i can't doctrinize my experience (ha! and maybe you really shouldn't want me to), i feel both compelled and liberated to leave this as an encouragement. go seek God. it has been worth it for me so far.

as ever,

joel

why doesn't olive oil taste like olives?

photo: http://www.creativetools.se/

i need to know.