EPISODE 407: SO LET ME JUST ASK YOU THIS ONE THING

POP CULTURE SPIRIT WOW

So let me ask you something. (Warning: This ride involves sudden turns.) Why is it when we speed protons around and around in a supercollider and then smash them together we discover all kinds of smaller interesting particles, but when people go round and round and then smash into each other it’s mostly just a mess of pain?

Is there a way in which the random events that change our lives are actually nothing more than us and something else being whipped around the globe, maybe for years and years beforehand, and then finally being smashed together? And if so, could that actually mean that there is something actually generative and life-giving about our collisions?

I may be romanticizing what happens when two protons collide there; it’s not like it’s a happy moment for them to disintegrate, now is it.

How about this: Do protons seeing the onrushing other that looks just themselves wonder what the hell is happening and how did they end up here and suddenly remember all the rotations of their little lives? And afterward the smash is there a white light and do they see the electrons and neutrons they grew up with?

Also, in that moment before the collisions that change us or destroy us, do they have a moment of clarity where they realize oh god, we’re all just the same aren’t we? And do we?

A couple years ago I finally discovered the value of those labyrinths you sometimes find at retreat and wellness centers. Do you know what I mean, there’s a circular maze-like pattern created out of stones or just painted into the concrete and then you just wander through it, taking your time and letting your mind wander. It looks ridiculous, but it’s got this weirdly restful quality. Like you have to use just enough brain to follow the path that the rest of it kind of eases up and goes into open dreamy funtime mode, which is actually a factory setting but once you get busy you do need to remember the cheat codes.

So what about this: Could a trip through a labyrinth be like a supercollider collision in slow motion, where the thing we’re slowly colliding with is God or our deeper selves, and the collision because it happens so slow does not present as destructive but freeing and transformative? And also, is that a way of looking at life? And if so oh my God have I been living in a labyrinth all this time and no one told me? And is that why when you get older you get vertigo?

Is there a way we’re all our lives heading into a destructive life-ending collision but taken very very slowly that’s actually an exciting, liberating good thing?

This newsletter https://craigmod.com/ridgeline/007/made me think about all of this. And I’m happy I did, even if I’m now pretty broken up about the things we do to protons.

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It seems like I keep seeing articles in prominent online publications (in 2019 no longer an oxymoron!) about the power of meditation, the need to find ways to become more present to your life, of being in the now, of being with the joys and pain of it all, letting it in like a cat that has decided to climb on all the surfaces of your life.

And it’s been a little bemusing. (Aside: I’m not sure I’ve been able to truly describe myself as genuinely bemused before. #Growing?) Because it seems like most of what they’re talking about is stuff that religious people have been doing in different ways for a long time. And a lot of us even talk about it, we thought we were communicating it pretty well in fact, but it turns out maybe not so much. If I really want to communicate about prayer or dwelling with the truth within, I really need to be working at/speaking Goop or offering coloring projects or be 25 again.

Which, you know, fair enough. I feel a little bit like the guy at the office meeting who gave an answer that no one listened to, but then Shirley who everybody loves said it a minute later and people were like, YES, THAT, WOW, Shirley, once again you dazzle us. And then they all go out to the hip Thai place where all the food tastes like HEAT while I clean the cinders from the chimney, Cinderella. But it’s cool to see people interested. Hopefully some day they will find a place for me or others like me at that their hot Thai table too.

And you know what’s really weird (other than this rambling; are you still there?...there...there...)? One of the places I really think about being in the moment, like a place where I think I may be growing in my spiritual practice, is at the dentist.

I know, it’s one of the strangest and most awful moments life has to offer. Hello. There is someone with his hand in my mouth. And he is not leaving. And also he is staring into my face, he is staring into my face, he is staring into my face. (I actually always keep my eyes shut at the dentist.)

So what can I do? Try to escape into the secret garden in my mind. But what if instead I try to actively accept? I am sitting here in this seat right now that is like a bed but with arms and there is a man sitting beside me and a shining light and he has a hand in my mouth and he is looking into my face. And breathe.

I know that sounds crazy. But I actually do think about it every time I go to the dentist. Which I guess lately is kind of a lot. #GoodTimes

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My newsletter Yoda Warren Ellis has a new website blog thing. He posts there just a little bit a couple times a week. Like this photo.

Or this post.

Last night I laid in bed and listened to the foghorns sounding over the estuary. I haven’t heard them that loud and clear in years. The sound reminded me of the brief period I lived in America. There, I would lay and listen to the trains lowing as they came into the yard down by the river. American train horns are sad, haunted sounds. Especially compared to the triumphant fanfares of British trains. The Thames Delta’s foghorn is an old beast rearing up and letting you know it’s still there and still watching, ancient and tired as it may be. It’s here, it sees you, and it’s reaching its arms out to guide you.

The fog is rolling back in, laying a white veil over the treetops. I look forward to going to sleep to the note of the river tonight.

If when Morpheus was not writing code to break everyone free from the Matrix, he took a few minutes to write about the many shades of computer screen green, that would be this.
Ellis's newsletter also introduced me last week to this beautiful instrumental album from Zoë Keating. It’s very Scandinavian, haunting/yearning strings and bass like foghorns. Highly recommend. (The song Forte is my new It is morning but everything is going to be okay.) ++ Am I the only one watching I'm Sorry on TruTV/Netflix? (LA husband and daughter watch while their comedian wife/mother says/does ridiculous/appalling things.) Watching I feel like I too should be apologizing for myself, but I also kind of love it. It's so clearly true to the life and family of the comedian.

Can't wait to jump back into Better Things this weekend, too. ++ Kind of a crazy week. Big deep breaths at the start, followed by discovering that oh, the reason my floor sounds hollow is that it is a trapdoor, and then falling and falling and then running all while on my laptop and the phone with people trying to convince them to do interviews with me or help me understand things that I thought I understood but didn't. And realizing, wow, this is not what I was supposed to spend this week doing, we are going to have to sit down and give ourselves a rather stern lecture about planning this weekend, but also, okay, sure, fun.

Here's part of the fruit of that labor. And maybe something more to drop tomorrow. If you are in the Churchverse or Angeleno-adjacent, keep your eyes out. Neither story is about very happy things, but I do think/hope there's some interesting things in them. And if I get my act together maybe next week I can balance with happy stories about satellites who agree to crash into moons.

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ALERT. PLEASE STOP WHAT YOU ARE DOING AND BASK IN THE RAYS OF THIS BEAUTIFUL SUN.

Actually, for as tremendous as the picture is, this article which talks about it, basically a long list of analogies to the greatness that is that photo, is also fantastic.

Tonight, just now, while we were either sleeping/watching it or desperately worrying about whether we have time to completely rewatch Game of Thrones before the last season premieres (it doesn’t debut until April 15th, it’s plenty of time, but maybe don’t immediately follow up that realization by deciding to tweet about every episode, because wow is that not going to work out in terms of time management), Grey’s Anatomy just surpassed ER as the longest running medical drama of all time. It’s had 332 episodes as of tonight, if you can believe it.

And what’s more it has never been out of the top 3 TV dramas since it debuted fourteen years ago, and is currently second only to the Walking Dead. A few years ago when they decided to put the previous seasons on Netflix the show actually got a ratings bump, which once again, is insane.

Vulture had a whole thing about it today.

In other news, there were Oscars last week. I don’t know what you thought; I wondered if somewhere there’s a hypnotist who is laughing so hard because he made all of us believe long ago that we actually wanted to spend three or four hours every year watching that.

But if nothing else it did occasion this wonderful piece about when the Oscars asked Hugh Jackman to host during the Recession, and the writers created for him this wonderful DIY opening number.

This week in “Everything You Believed about Women Twenty Years Ago is Just so Wrong (, Men)”, this article about Lorena Bobbitt, which makes me want to shake 20 years ago me and insist he ask some questions rather than just jump on the late night joke joke bandwagon.

And if you’ve liked the alien art today, it’s from a series called “Strange Planet” by artist Nathan W. Pyle. You can find the full set on his Instagram feed.

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You know that thing where people say words and wave their hands around and maybe play with their noses and then stuff happens? What do they call that, sneezing?

No, but seriously now, you’ve come so far. We’re almost there. Stay with me.

Magic. I’ve been thinking a bit about magic the last couple months. Not top hat rabbit magic, but the idea of being able to somehow actually tap into and affect the universe or figures within that universe through words and maybe hand wavery and the occasional nose tinkle.

Strictly from a Catholic priest who believes in Supernatural Beings and also Ghosts and UFOs standpoint, I’ve got a lot of hesitation about the whole idea of messing with stuff in the Real Life Magic realm. It seems to me sort of like deciding to smash protons together using only your instincts. Supercolliders are so, you know, 1997. Why don’t you go show us your microscope, Grandpa. Like okay, maybe I’m old fashioned, but I think if your very cool young gut instincts are not super specific and precise you could actually create an atom bomb or end up hosting a party for a very ancient creature for a very long time and he will take the master bedroom, thank you.

It’s also true that there’s a way in which saying Mass ends up looking sort of like Real Life Magic, Sassy Catholic Style! I say a whole bunch of words, synchronized with certain gestures, and Voilá! This bread now offers you a lot more than fiber, you’re most welcome.

And I pretty much hate everything about that interpretation of Mass other than writing it like that to you right now, that was fun. I’m not a magician, there’s no special power in me or in the words, the idea is more that the words and actions are a way of all of us entering back into a story, the Last Supper, and what we do – we, the whole congregation, not just the guy up front dressed super fancy – is together enter into that experience where God was present in a special way and sort of ask him to be with us like that again. It’s like a very special religious kind of storytelling; a good story draws you in. You’re not just hearing about the events, you’re somehow there. That’s what we’re talking about here.

Okay, unexpected little detour into Catholic Catechism there. I’ll be your host, until they lock me up and send me away!

Anyway, magic. So a couple months ago I was at this regional Jesuit meeting where we had these small group sessions where people who I don’t know very well and I were asked to share about our take on certain things. And I had this experience both listening and speaking of being liberated from worries or assumptions I didn’t even know were wrapped around me and ruining my circulation and also slightly choking me out. Their stories were so similar to my own, and also saying some of my own stuff out loud took away its power and it kind of just fell away.

And that got me thinking, maybe there is something to this whole idea of the spoken word as magic. Certainly we can use words to spin webs and nets and throw invisible daggers that can be astonishingly difficult to remove and secrete some kind of crazy-making poison as long as they’re in there. But maybe the right arrangement of words can open locks and dissolve chains too.

It sounds like I’m talking about what you and I call speaking, doesn’t it. Is that what I’m doing, just giving speaking a fresh coat of velvet and some press on stars?

I’m not sure. I feel like there might be more to it than that. In the New Testament Jesus tells his disciples they can cast out demons, too, and I wonder if this is what he meant. Sometimes it’s a few words, sometimes it’s just a touch, and somehow Abracadabra everything is changed.

Look after yourself. I’ll try to do the same. See you next week.