Parts of Speaking Publishing

This is what I have been trying to say, less well.  It was posted by the former president of "my" college, where I taught 21 years.  Worth a read and some methodical reflection. The best comments I have read on the subject Written by James Bell I’ve waited to speak about the recent tradegy surrounding ICE, the protests, and the killings because as a pastor, it feels like there is a new moral outrage demanding immediate commentary almost every week. But immediate reaction is rarely the same thing as wisdom. So I have taken time to read, to listen to people I disagree with, and to think. And what I feel most is not just anger. It is sorrow. The Hebrew word for justice is mishpat (מִשְׁפָּט). Mishpat is uncomfortable in polarized cultures because it refuses to fully side with anyone. It critiques the right when authority crushes mercy. It critiques the left when compassion ignores responsibility. Justice answers to God, not to movements And mishpat is exactly what we are strugg...

  ‘ O look, look in the mirror, O look in your distress: Life remains a blessing Although you cannot bless. ‘ O stand, stand at the window As the tears scald and start; You shall love your crooked neighbour With your crooked heart.’ — W. H. Auden A (sort of) Christmas Poem six weeks late. But it's by Wendell Berry, and I think I like his poetry better than his fiction. This one is "Sabbaths." Remembering that it happened once, We cannot turn away the thought, As we go out, cold, to our barns Toward the long night’s end, that we Ourselves are living in the world It happened in when it first happened, That we ourselves, opening a stall (A latch thrown open countless times Before), might find them breathing there, Foreknown: the Child bedded in straw, The mother kneeling over Him, The husband standing in belief He scarcely can believe, in light That lights them from no source we see, An April morning’s light, the air Around them joyful as a ch...

 I was directed to the All Poetry site to read a poem by Philip Larkin, " Church Going. " I was studying the poem and started to read the "Analysis" pasted below it on this site. As I waded it through its bullet points (how does one analyze a poem with bullet points?) I thought, this reads like even more pretentious than usual AI. I pulled back up to the start, but there was an easy-to-miss (ai) after the word "Analysis." For shame. I am sure the poet would be enraged to know that we are being led to understand his poem through what an algorithm collects and inflicts on us.  AI sure knows its abstract language and poetic-ese, though. I am spooked by the experience of a machine explaining this poem, which I found thoughtful, to me. The sense of personal betrayal cuts deep.