The Divinity Would Not Mind

 I find it quite depressing to read the daily death figures from the Muslim religious observance of the hajj in Saudi Arabia. The numbers vary widely, some focusing purely on restricted groups reporting only in double digits, but now major news outlets are projecting a death total exceeding a thousand souls perishing in temperatures topping 100 degrees Fahrenheit.

As a card-carrying Compassionate Agnostic, (a CA for short -  I need to remember to have those cards printed) I occasionally feel compelled to speak out on behalf of the Divinity:

It is not pleased. Come on now, here we have almost two million devout believers - many of them elderly, a demographic in which I am reluctantly included - trudging across a desert in triple digit heat to demonstrate their devotion to the Divinity.

The Divinity gratefully acknowledges the devotion, but proposes a tad more ”calendarical” flexibility for the event - especially considering global warming. (For which the Divinity is withholding judgment. All tied up with the free will choices of humanity, you know.) So moving the hajj to a less virulent time of year - like December? - would be fine with the Big D.

However, the Divinity is not holding its breath. And can we blame it? Consider our time on earth for Divinity’s sake. Seemingly, the planet has run red with “holy blood” ever since we first figured how to carves clubs and knap flint into knives, hatchets and spear points. The Divinity is quite displeased with the rampant bloodletting done in its name. It is not amused. Not at all. 

It is bad enough when, as parodied in Dr. Seuss’s delightful Butter Battle Book, two sets of contrary “believers”, bloody each other. From ancient sacrifices to crusades to pogroms to holocausts to modern armed conflicts, the Divinity is chagrined. But even more, when we visit unnecessary mayhem upon our fellow travelers, within our particular the family of belief, as it were, well, again the Divinity is not amused. 

The Divinity would far prefer that we learn to be gentle with each other, and certainly be compassionate in performing those rituals intended to show our fealty to the Divinity’s core of lovingkindness.

* What is a “compassionate agnostic?” Glad you asked, particularly since I have encountered folks who think “agnostic” and “atheist” mean the same thing. Not at all. 

To use an example from my old home, The Old North State, aka North Carolina: Folks in other parts of the country often confuse the Wolfpack of North Carolina State University, where I spent 40 some years teaching, with the Tarheels of The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, from which my daughters secured various degrees. The two institutions share portions of their names, but there the similarities end. The same is true with agnostic and atheist. 

To clarify:

An atheist - a-theist - denies the existence of a supreme being, a god.

An agnostic - as I use it, acknowledges the existence of a transcendent force that guides, but does not control, the nature and evolution of the cosmos.

A compassionate agnostic (CA) - again in my usage - believes that that transcendent force is compassionate, and that we, in our own little diorama of existence here on the third rock from the sun, should seek to manifest that compassion in our own lives. I have discussed elsewhere in these pages - I know, I know, sometimes at tedious length - Distilled Harmony, my own attempt to carve a path towards compassion. We CAs can natter on as we try to clarify that path. 🤪

Cloning Lilies

It had been a long time since I had done any digital manipulation with L'Image Aumentare, other than simply creating the basic "cartoon" within which I created the designs, like this, which you have already seen.

And then I colored the blanks in which gave me this image, again, which you have already seen:

But then I took the image to Staples and had them run it through their large scanner which gave me a digital version that I could manipulate in Photoshop. There I aded an addition layer, and painted a small sunset which I put behind the original Indian Lily and did a bit of cleaning on the original layer which gave me this image

Anyhow I am going to play with another type of L'Image Aumentare which entails leaving the background intact. I did a version of my Grandfather's car using that process. This time I'm going to play with a flower.  Like this:

I'll start with this picture from a nearby park:

And then remove the main flower, creating some spaces for designs.

Like this:

I'll let you know how it turns out!

Beyond the Reach of Forgiveness

Alexander Pope told us “to err is human, to forgive divine.” 

It is a comforting platitude that looks great on coffee mugs and T-shirts. Yet, I have always felt that a touch of clarification was needed: To err is easy, to forgive often seems impossible. 

One need only glimpse at the daily headlines to confirm my admittedly dour addition. Israel seemingly cannot forgive Hamas’ recent addition to the unceasing attacks of its neighbors, while Hamas and its allies are equally unforgiving of Israel’s decisive response. Ukraine is reluctant to forgive Putin’s unprovoked attack, while Putin remains unforgiving of western support of Ukraine’s surprisingly adamant resistance.

While these two international conflicts dominate our media, a deeper dive into the state of the world reveals a depressing number of “pools of intractable differences” separating “us” and “them,” supporting Kipling’s lament; “East is east, and West is west, and never the twain shall meet,” without divine intervention. Assuming, that is, that we were to agree on whose divinity takes precedence. A detente history tells us is unlikely.

Would that we were able to take comfort by focusing our attention closer to home. But we can’t. Our government is more reminiscent of scuffles on an elementary school playground than a forum for reasoned debate designed to succor the needs of “we the people” -  “Yeah, our team has only 3 felony convictions. Your guy has 34 and counting!” How about “You will both stay after school and write ‘I will play nice with others’ one hundred times on the blackboard and then clean the erasers.” Jeeez.

While the big picture would suffice to drive us to drink, the smaller image is no guarantee of inner peace. I heard a couple of years ago of someone somewhere in the various webs of extended families in which I am embedded had actually created a list of people forbidden to attend their funeral! True story, the details of which I have thankfully repressed, but talk about “beyond the reach of forgiveness!”

I came to my personal mantra of Distilled Harmony: Foster Harmony, Enable Beauty, Distill Complexity, and Oppose Harm,  partly in the hope that it would minimize discord in my life. And to a certain extent it has. But there is a potential fly in the ointment - oppose harm. 

In every conflict I have enumerated in this post - international to interpersonal - the bugaboo of “us versus them” raises its ugly head. The “other” becomes the party whose harm we must oppose, and that opposition - depending upon degree - often places them “beyond the reach of forgiveness.” 

In family court they call those “irreconcilable differences.” And while the precise percentage of marriages that end “beyond the reach of forgiveness” is debated, it is a number that every couple tends to ignore when headed for the alter. Less visible, but equally distressing are relationships within families and among friends that end in fractures where opposing some perceived harm prevents the fostering of harmony. These situations often evolve when an individual either sees themselves as harmed by another, or wishes to protect another individual from harm, and so must place the “source of harm” at least “beyond the reach of forgiveness” and perhaps beyond anything. The internet calls one form of this negative cycle “ghosting.” You simply make the harmful other “disappear” - a rather totalitarian solution.

“Well, Schrag, thanks for ruining my day!”  I know, I know, and I am truly sorry. But I do have some positive suggestions.

First, both Pope and Kipling lay this conundrum on the shoulders of divine intervention, and if you have influence in that arena, please feel free to utilize it. However, here are some more secular suggestions as to how we might deal with instances in our lives that may have somehow crept “beyond the reach of forgiveness.”

While Google has removed its classic mantra “Don’t Be Evil” from its corporate code it seems a good idea for us to revive it in ours. And couple it with this: Don’t Escalate. Bite back the “deserved” response. Or to steal a phrase from the medical community: primum non nocere, or “first, do no harm.” More simply, chill.

Next let me steal my email signature which you usually see when The Wall is sent to you:

“Who we are is a quality of the moment. What we have done in the past cannot be undone, and what we have promised for the future remains but a promise. So live each moment in the awareness that it defines you.”

To condense that for this particular post: Let bygones be bygones. Don’t dwell on the past, live face to the future.

Internationally, those issues are pretty much beyond our control except as we seek to influence those who do have an impact. For us here in the USA, that remains a question for the ballot box and your checkbook. In those instances, I do come back to Distilled Harmony, and seek, to vote for and support, to what extent possible, candidates who advocate inclusiveness and loving kindness and eschew conflict and denigration. 

Sometimes a tough task. And tho’ a true child of the sixties who has carried my share of signs in the streets, I have lost touch with the more overt manifestations of discord on college campuses where I spent most of my life. The intent always seems to rail against those one has declared to be “beyond the reach of forgiveness.” A strategy based in intimidation and conflict - signposts on the very road to a world “beyond the reach of forgiveness.”

Interpersonally, I, to re-emphasize, will revert again to my email signature, and while not denying my past, occasionally spectacular, stumbles, will seek to do better in the all important, and uniquely controllable, present.

L'Image Aumentare: Indian Lily Final

 This is one of those images when asked "How long did it take you to do that?" I simply point out that it took Klimt three years to complete the Portrait of Adele Bloch-Bauer. This image did not take that long.

The title of this work stems from the fact that the original photo was of a flower in the calla lily family called Indian Shot. In most email apps if you click on the image it pulls it out in a separate window.  The painted image is 14 x 19 inches.

Indian Lily