Thoughts on the world of open source
The words and thought of Proverbs 11:29 have been with me a lot this fall. I’ve been pondering these words and not even knowing their source. What does it mean to inherit the wind? There is a lot of wisdom in the Book of Proverbs.
He that troubleth his own house shall inherit the wind:and the fool shall be servant to the wise of heart.–Proverbs 11:29
Sometimes I question whether this is the place I’m supposed to be. I question whether I’m doing what I ought to be. This Merton quote puts some of that in perspective. I too like to listen to the wind and to live in as much silence as possible.
Everything about this hermitage simply fills me with joy. There are lots of things that could have been far more perfect one way or the other-aesthetically or “domestically”. But this is the place God has given me after so much prayer and longing-but without my deserving it. It is a delight. I can imagine no other joy on earth than to have such a place and to be at peace in it, to live in silence, to think and write, to listen to the wind and to all the voices of the wood, to live in the shadow of the big cedar cross, to prepare for my death and my exodus to the heavenly country, to love my brothers and all people, to pray for the world and for peace and good sense among men. So it is “my place” in the scheme of things. That is sufficient!
Thomas Merton. Dancing in the Water of Life. Robert E. Daggy, editor. San Francisco: HarperSanFrancisco, 1997: 209.
News that the Obama girls will be attending Sidwell Friends School in Washington, DC sent me a journey to learn more about the school. I’ve long been fascinated with Quakers and regularly contribute to the Friends Committee on National Legislation. In the library under Holy Peace Chapel at Mt. Irenaeus hangs a framed poster with the following written on it. Reading this nearly nine years ago led me to believe that perhaps I had found a home.
If you are wondering what God may be,
Looking for a purpose in life,
Craving company, or seeking solitude,
Come to our Meeting for worship!
We shall not ask you to speak or sing,
We shall not ask you what you believe,
We shall simply offer you our friendship,
And a chance to sit quietly and think,
And perhaps somebody will speak,
And perhaps somebody will read,
And perhaps somebody will pray,
And perhaps you will find here
That which you are seeking…
We are not saints,
We are not cranks,
We are not different –
Except that we believe,
That God’s light is in us all,
Waiting to be discovered.
Yesterday I had to run a couple of errands. I left home around 11AM and drove to my mother’s in Arcade, New York. Mom’s computer needed to be rebuilt last week. Mom’s rebuilt computer is running Ubuntu 8.10. Mom’s been using Ubuntu Linux for a couple of years now and its been a good fit for her. The simple interface, one-click access to electronic mail and no time wasted scanning for viruses and spyware. Along with Mom’s computer I had the computer of another customer, whose Windows XP system had to be rebuilt because spyware had done it in. After reinstalling all the applications and installing the computer in the customers home they elected to pay me more than I had billed them for. What a nice surprise.
I climbed into my car and drove to the local McDonalds for a cheeseburger. I love cheeseburgers and french fries. I don’t get them as often as I did thirty years ago, but I stilll enjoy them. It was only 3PM and how was I going to spend the rest of my day. I turned my car east on Route 39 and drove to my Abbey of the Genesee. It had been nearly a month since my last visit. When I got to the Abbey I was tired and elected to take a nap in my car before venturing inside. The lot was full of cars. I’d never seen so many cars there. I awoke from my nap just as Mass was ending, but I did stay for Vespers and a time of quiet on my own in the chapel. I spent some time in the bread store and picked up a couple of Monks Brownies along with a small book.
As I emerged from the abbey I looked through the mist toward the State University of New York at Geneseo. I stood silently looking at the distant campus and at the statue of the Our Lady of the Genesee just a few yards from me. It was good to be home again. I’ve come here often in the past thirty years. Where have those years gone? When I look at the monks I think, what did they look like in 1978? Were they here? Some of them must have been. We’ve grown old together.
Deer season has started in our area and hunters like my Dad always loved tracking snow as they called it. It’s easier to hunt and kill deer when there is a cover of the white stuff. I live adjacent to a wooded area and just last week as I returned home I saw three deer crossing our street and moving into that wooded area. I hope they are safe now, but probably not as the deer hunters comb the nearby woods looking for animals to kill.
I’ve only hunted deer a few times in my life. My last hunting trip was in November of 1982. I find no pleasure in killing deer. I’ve collided with many deer in my car. The last collision occurred on Good Friday nearly five years ago when a deer intersected my path on New York State Route 242 in the Town of Ellicottville. That deer cost me a $250 deductible on my insurance coverage. Despite that I still love them more than not. They are such graceful creatures and move about like the Ruach.
This morning found me out the door early for a change. It had been almost three Sundays since I’d made the trip from Franklinville to Mt. Irenaeus. I’ve fighting off the flu and now a real tough chest infection. I’ve been down the last few weeks in a slump I haven’t been able to shake. I’ve been in the desert again. Today was gray and cold but I donned my hat and coat and climbed into the car. I stopped in Cuba, New York at the Giant Food Mart there to pick up some food to bring to the Mountain then climbed back into my car and took the old Friendship Road which is for slow pokes like me. I prefer driving at 40 or 50 mph and that invites a lot of hand gestures as well as aggressive drivers tailgating. I frequently pull over to let them by. I finally got to Hydetown Road and made my way up the dirt road to Holy Peace. Today my drive was even slower and more deliberate and once I broke onto Roberts Road my pace slowed even more.
After parking my car, putting the produce in the refrigerator and greeting Br. Joe, Br. Kevin and some of the students who were in the House of Peace, I made my way slowly up the hill to the chapel. I was greeted by Fr. Lou McCormick, OFM who asked me to do the first reading at today’s Eucharist. “It’s from Ezekiel,” he said. I walked slowly to the front of the chapel and picked up the lectionary to review the first reading. These words written thousands of years ago spoke to me today as though they were written by someone who knows me well.
The angel brought me
back to the entrance of the temple,
and I saw water flowing out
from beneath the threshold of the temple toward the east,
for the façade of the temple was toward the east;
the water flowed down from the southern side of the temple,
south of the altar.
He led me outside by the north gate,
and around to the outer gate facing the east,
where I saw water trickling from the southern side.
He said to me,
“This water flows into the eastern district down upon the Arabah,
and empties into the sea, the salt waters, which it makes fresh.
Wherever the river flows,
every sort of living creature that can multiply shall live,
and there shall be abundant fish,
for wherever this water comes the sea shall be made fresh.
Along both banks of the river, fruit trees of every kind shall grow;
their leaves shall not fade, nor their fruit fail.
Every month they shall bear fresh fruit,
for they shall be watered by the flow from the sanctuary.
Their fruit shall serve for food, and their leaves for medicine.”–Ezekiel 47
I have been dry, very dry and I needed the water in the sanctuary today. Psalm 63 has been with me a lot lately and often I think of it. I keep it bookmarked on my Blackberry and look at it often.
O God, you are my God– for you I long! For you my body yearns; for you my soul thirsts, Like a land parched, lifeless, and without water.–Psalm 63
Deo Gratias.
This is a special night. This is one of those watershed events in history. This campaign reminded of the campaign of John F. Kennedy in 1960. I remember that. I was a seven year old boy. This campaign just concluded has surpassed that one in the sense that not only have we elected a new president, but we have done so conclusively. I wonder what Martin Luther King Jr. would have thought of such an event. I am filled with gratefulness and happiness. This is the end perhaps of a long dark night in American politics and policy. I hope that President-Elect Obama can bring our nation together. I am weary of politics as usual and I think that is what President Obama will bring a paradigm change. I believe he will be a consensus builder.
We face a very uncertain future. These are times that will require special leadership and I believe that the creator has heard our prayers. I’ll write more as I’m really tapped out from all of this. I feel very tired tonight, a bit feverish. For nearly eight years now I have been praying for peace, walking for peace, running for peace and just trying to be at peace. Good night. Pax vobiscum.
Here’s something timely that came in the mail today from a Christian monk who died nearly forty years ago. How would the pundits describe him today?
People demand that the government “interfere” in nothing, just pour money into the armament industry and provide a strong police for “security”. But stay out of everything else! No interference in medicine, mental health, education, etc. Never was a country at once shrewder and less wise–shrewd in non-essentials and lunatic in essentials.
I have no doubt the world feels toward America the way many monks feel toward an abbot who wants to exercise total power, to receive unquestioning obedience on the basis of slogans about which he himself ceased thinking about twenty-five years ago, and who above all wants to be loved, so that he many never, at any time, to himself, seem to be exercising power, or loving it. Nobody denies him the power he has: few give him the love that he needs in order to be safe and content. And therefore he uses his power, from time to time, in unpredictable, arbitrary and absurd ways in which he defends his own ends and makes everybody miserable.
Thomas Merton. Turning Toward the World. Victor A. Kramer, editor. San Francisco: HarperSanFranciso, 1996: 259.
O Lord, open my eyes that I may see the needs of others; open my ears that I may hear their cries; open my heart so that they need not be without succor; let me not be afraid to defend the weak because of the anger of the strong, nor afraid to defend the poor because of the anger of the rich … And so open my eyes and my ears that I may this coming day be able to do some work of peace for thee.
– Alan Paton
Contemplation is life itself, fully awake, fully active, fully aware that it is alive. It is spiritual wonder. It is spontaneous awe at the sacredness of life, of being. It is gratitude for life, for awareness, and for being. It is a vivid realization of the fact that life and being in us proceed from an invisible, transcendent, and infinitely abundant Source. Contemplation is, above all, awareness of the reality of that Source. It knows the Source, obscurely, inexplicably, but with a certitude that goes beyond reason and beyond simple faith… It is a more profound depth of faith, a knowledge too deep to be grasped in images, in words, or even in clear concepts.
Contemplation is also the response to a call: a call from Him Who has no voice, and yet Who speaks in everything that is, and Who, most of all, speaks in the depths of our own being; for we ourselves are words of His. But we are words that are meant to respond to Him, to answer to Him, to echo Him, and even in some way to contain Him and signify Him. Contemplation is this echo. It is a deep resonance in the inmost center of our spirit in which our very life loses its separate voice and re-sounds with the majesty and the mercy of the Hidden and Living One…
Thomas Merton. New Seeds of Contemplation. New York: New Directions Press, 1962: 1-3.