The Calf Path
One day, through the primeval wood,
A calf walked home, as good calves should;
But made a trail all bent askew,
A crooked trail as all calves do.
Since then three hundred years have fled,
And, I infer, the calf is dead.
But still he left behind his trail,
And thereby hangs my moral tale.
The trail was taken up next day,
By a lone dog that passed that way.
And then a wise bell-wether sheep,
Pursued the trail o’er vale and steep;
And drew the flock behind him too,
As good bell-wethers always do.
And from that day, o’er hill and glade.
Through those old woods a path was made.
And many men wound in and out,
And dodged, and turned, and bent about;
And uttered words of righteous wrath,
Because ’twas such a crooked path.
But still they followed – do not laugh -
The first migrations of that calf.
And through this winding wood-way stalked,
Because he wobbled when he walked.
This forest path became a lane,
that bent, and turned, and turned again.
This crooked lane became a road,
Where many a poor horse with his load,
Toiled on beneath the burning sun,
And traveled some three miles in one.
And thus a century and a half,
They trod the footsteps of that calf.
The years passed on in swiftness fleet,
The road became a village street;
And this, before men were aware,
A city’s crowded thoroughfare;
And soon the central street was this,
Of a renowned metropolis;
And men two centuries and a half,
Trod in the footsteps of that calf.
Each day a hundred thousand rout,
Followed the zigzag calf about;
And o’er his crooked journey went,
The traffic of a continent.
A Hundred thousand men were led,
By one calf near three centuries dead.
They followed still his crooked way,
And lost one hundred years a day;
For thus such reverence is lent,
To well established precedent.
A moral lesson this might teach,
Were I ordained and called to preach;
For men are prone to go it blind,
Along the calf-paths of the mind;
And work away from sun to sun,
To do what other men have done.
They follow in the beaten track,
And out and in, and forth and back,
And still their devious course pursue,
To keep the path that others do.
They keep the path a sacred groove,
Along which all their lives they move.
But how the wise old wood gods laugh,
Who saw the first primeval calf!
Ah! many things this tale might teach -
But I am not ordained to preach.
-Sam Walter Foss
Recent Readings
“The Rennaisance was when they got Man’s relationship with Spirit wrong. They revived the old Pagan idea that man is the measure of all things, which of course is absurd, and that idea did untold damage. Instead of infinity you had to be content with a circle a man could touch at every point.”…”Conjuring the wrong images. Since then we’ve been living in an anthropocentric universe with our eyes and ears and minds shut. What is called religion isn’t about inhuman spirit but about Man and Morals and Progress, which are much less important. And then science came, which should have given them an inkling, an inkling of the inhuman powers that be, but what they did was develoop their anthropocentricity into the terrible idea that Man is the master of all things. Now that, Potter, is black conjuring, that produced Hiroshima and Satanic Mills. Science could have been used, of course, to re-establish the ancient knowledge that man had his place on a scale of being as an intermediary between pure matter and pure spirit. But they talked about the indomitable human spirit and the empty heavens and lost their chances. Including any chance to deal with, or describe, or even recognize experience of the kind you’ve just had.”
-The Virgin in the Garden, by A. S. Byatt (p127 in my copy)
“Does it surprise you that most of what we do in [Christian] religious circles has no precedent in scripture?”…”There were three historical periods when a bevy of changes were made in common church practices: the era of Constantine, the decades surrounding the Protestant Reformation, and the Revivalist period of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. But as you are about to find out, those changes were the result of passionate, though often ill-informed, followers of Christ. The believers during those periods simply went along for the ride”…”The preponderance of evidence shows that these perspectives, rules, traditions, expectations, assumptions, and practices often hinder the development of our faith. In other instances, they serve as barriers that keep us from encountering the living God.”
-Pagan Christianity? Viola & Barna, p xxvii
Recently I’ve felt very at odds with the modern Christian Church and I believe it is no longer what it was mean to be, 2000 years ago- And I’m finding out in my research that I’m right. And I feel reassured.
Do not Worry about Tomorrow
I am realizing that I am all too much motivated by money. In church, Wesley and Ashley were saying that we shouldn’t be motivated by wealth and that we aren’t meant to live a life of comfort, but rather we should follow God with a reckless abandon- We should chose difficult options in life, rather than the safe, boring ones, because God will provide for us.
Matthew 6:25-34
“Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own.”
I am finding a lot of comfort in that idea. I feel like I’ve lost my wanderlust over the last year, and I think God is seeking to bring that back out in me.
Jekyll Island
I went to Jekyll for a family reunion. I was expecting it to be really awkward and weird like our christmas family reunions, but it wasn’t at all. I wish I could have stayed longer- I love my Danish relatives. I have a lot in common with my aunt Margaret and her daughter, my cousin, Lee. We’re all middle children, love horses and my aunt and I both pursued art in our undergrads and Lee probably will too. Its almost eerie, our similarities. Lee draws the same way I did when I was her age.
The island was beautiful- much nicer than Tybee. I used to think it was ugly when I was a kid, but I guess I was comparing it to the Caribbean. I went swimming with Lee in the ocean, which I used to be terrified of, and it was so nice. We swam at sunset and the moon came up and all you could see was ocean and the reflection of the moon on the water, and blues and grays everywhere. The water was really warm too. It was a good time.
Also, there is a lot of history on the island- Old houses and such. I don’t care too much to write it down here but I put up pictures! I like to imagine the island back when there were only millionaires on it, in the 20s or so. It must have been like the Great Gatsby.
My aunt told me that there has been a long history of mothers not teaching their daughters how to cook, which makes me feel a little better about my ignorance to cooking. She said that all my grandma knew how to cook when she married my grandfather was tuna and waffles, so the first meal she cooked for him when they moved in together was tuna with waffles. GROSS RIGHT?! Hahaha. Also, she told me my Grandfather used to have a terrible temper and thats where my mother got it from. She says she set out not to be like that in parenting, which I admire. She was also reading some book called Midnights with the Mystic and was leaving new agey books around to see what our other relatives would say about them- which is SO funny because I do the exact same thing. Apparently I was the only relative who bothered to comment on it, though, which was because it looked like something I’d read.
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- Mansion
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- Lion Statue
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- Mansion 2
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- Wooded Road
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- Beach
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- Woods
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- Trail
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- Beach
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- Trees
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- Lee and Me
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- Trees
180- Where is God?
So Habakkuk was some minor profit who complained to God because God sicked the Babylonians on the Israelites because they were being idiots. Anyway, the dude talking said thats its okay to complain to God if you do it with sincerity and with faith and humility- Habakkuk was questioning and petitioning God on behalf of his friends. God doesn’t get mad when people question him, he invites it- However, God hates arrogance, so if you tell God he sucks then expect some lightning. Yep. I knew most of that already.
Anyway, then Brian, a fellow student, spoke. He had a really moving story- He brought up Elijah, who was this crazy profit and God sent him out into the middle of nowhere to hide, and Ravens fed him. RAVENS. That would make an awesome painting right there, a profit of God hiding out by a brook with Ravens all around him. Imagine that, just for a second. Then the brook dried up so God sent Elijah off to meet a woman who would feed him and when he found her, she only had enough food for one more meal for her and her son, so Elijah told her if she fed him, she wouldn’t run out of food. So she did what he asked (That takes a lot of faith- if a bum told me If I fed him, and I was about to starve, that I wouldn’t run out of food, I’d probably run away screaming). True story, she didn’t run out so all was well until her son kicked the bucket anyway, so she got mad at Elijah and he was like alright, you need to calm down. So he went into the room with the dead kid and prayed that God would restore his life, and sho’nuff, it happened. I KNOW RIGHT?! Then the lady was like WHAT and everyone thought about how awesome God was. I’ll bet they had a party.
Anyway, Brian said that he has a friend, a girl, who was dying of cancer. She had a party at her house, and she was unconscious for most of it, but it was mostly just tons of people coming in to visit, and Brian was thinking about Elijah’s faith and prayer- and he wanted to cry out to God and ask that she be healed, but he was too scared that nothing would happen. And so instead, he went into her room and spoke to her, saying that she had the choice to stay or go to Heaven, and that he would love her to stay but if she wanted to go, then to do so- and he said she started moaning in her unconsciousness. Anyway, he ended up leaving and she died a few hours later, and while he was in his room that night he had a vision of ceiling lights in the hallway of a hospital, and then he saw his friend in Paradise- she was beautiful again, had her hair grown back, wasn’t sick and she was smiling- and she asked him if he understood why she’d left. And he said he did, and he said “Thank you for being a good sister.” And she replied, “I was a good sister because we have a good Father.”
The point being, God is good and because of this, we too can be good servants to God and to one another- God is present in ALL of creation, and community is part of God’s creation.. and we can find God in other people. God use us to speak through- not just pastors, not just priests and the hierarchy- but all of us. We are the temple, not the churches we build out of stone. The kingdom of God is in us, and similarly, we are part of God because he has restored us.
On an ending note, this was a very dramatic entry to write because I was listening to some really intense piano music.
