Tuesday, June 01, 2010

Poor China


B informs me from Shanghai that Ex Cathedra is not available there. (Nor Facebook nor YouTube). The Great Firewall of China. Alas for the benighted inhabitants of Cathay. Alas for poor B, who cannot read my blog wisdom whilst galavanting there. Alas for poor me, for obvious reasons I need not detail.

He noted some bizarre T-shirts he'd seen. Asia is famous for fractured English and worse. Among others, a grown Chinese man with a yellow T that read, "Daddy's Girl."

Speaking of blogs, I visited one by an Irish (probably gay) priest teaching English lit at a Japanese university. Prodigiously prodigiously bright, he is nonetheless fixated on the project of reformed Catholicism known as "the spirit of Vatican II." Which usually means the Episcopal Church, at most. I have occasionally asked hanging-on Vatican II liberal Catholics in what way their vision of their Church differs from the Episcopal Church. That kinda slows them up.

If you want a scary perspective on humanity, pick a controversial topic on YouTube and then read the comments. Someone recently noted that YT comments are famous for being a "mosh pit." At best.

I am a very intelligent man. My IQ puts me in the top 2%. Consequently this makes me something of an expert on the limits of intelligence. It's good for a lot of things but there are a lot of situations where it is neither relevant nor important. I don't like actually stupid people, but there are lots of folks without my level of smarts who are in fact much more successful in a host of ways. What irks me most of all --though it should not surprise me-- is smart people saying stupid things. And there I will confess that I can include myself from time to time.

Case in point, Irish priest noted above has a blog entry in which he names the US Army as "the most abusive organization in the world." Beyond pathetically stupid.

In my own eyes, my worst character flaw expresses itself in procrastination. Today I need to get some things done that I should have gotten done several weeks ago. Story of my life. It may give me longevity, since I will likely procrastinate about dying.

Was on a conference call last night with my five siblings, about how to deal with issues around my mom's health problems. Boy, is she lucky to have these men and women as her children.

My friend J is in town for a few weeks. Back in 2006-2007 I had some of the most transcendent sexual experiences of my life with him. Overwhelming sense of cosmic divinity, practically hallucinatory. If I ever had Faust's choice and would be tempted to cry out for a moment in my life, Verweile doch, du bist so schon...Linger a while, thou art so fair...those times with him would be heavily in the running. The man is a sexual magician. And a good friend.

Jacob wrestling with the Angel

And a very decent man. He recently expressed some misgivings about our connection; he felt he had opened up some regions in me which then enabled me to fall so deeply in love with B. "If things had turned out well for you, I might have considered myself the godfather of your happiness. As it is, I feel a little guilty." A good Canadian Protestant!

Not his fault. My grief is my own doing.


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1 comment:

Jack said...

I stumbled upon your blog and have found it very intriguing. I appreciate your perspective regarding catholicism, as well, your theological reflection upon sexuality is insightful. While not arriving at all the same conclusions, it seems to harmonize with the theological anthropology of JPII (communion, play.)

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