The world has a way of kicking me in the face. It waits 'til I'm smiling, naively staring at a promising horizon, imagining all the perfection and joy I have coming to me. Then...BAM! My lip is bleeding, eyes watering so bad I can't see the color of my own shirt, let alone a promising horizon.

I am stupid, though. I forget how it happens. Every time I see that horizon, I stare expectantly when a smarter man would just duck. Thats my curse, you know. Rather than floundering through life in the fetal position, I stand tall —brave and dumb—for the next kick.

But maybe it's my gift, too. I allow myself to be happy in the face of so many reasons not to. Maybe that's how I kick the world back in its face.

You can kill me, world, but you can't defeat me.

Image by [noone] via Flickr

Sitting on a lumpy seat
Holding her cup of water.
Nothing else could be as sweet
As this moment with my daughter.

The rush of the world makes it easy to forget the important things. It's good to get an occasional reminder of the things that make everything else matter.

I am the stone lotus, seated and still for centuries.

So, at work yesterday someone said that my degree in Religious Studies was essentially a degree in rhetoric. Of course, it was meant as a joke (mostly), but I think there's some truth there.

Firstly, I atended a Liberal Arts college, and as you may (or may not) know rhetoric was one of the three original Liberal Arts (along with logic and grammar), so there's some basis for saying that I got a degree in rhetoric.

Secondly, rhetoric has been a core component of politics and religion from the beginning. From Aristotle to Augustine, Cicero to Kierkegaard, the need to speak convincingly has always been a part of any movement intended to sway people toward an opinion. So, in that sense, I studied a great deal of rhetorical works and some truly phenomenal rhetorical speakers and writers.

But I have to disagree that the program is essentially a degree in rhetoric. Saying that the study of religion is the study of rhetoric is like saying that the study of war is the study of tanks. You can't avoid learning a little about it, but the focus in a properly managed religious studies program is elsewhere.

Of course, the person who said that knew this. He just wanted to see if he could spin me up. Didn't work, but because I like the topic I decided to post something about it anyway.

Worm's Meat (n): The finished product of which we are all the raw material. See also futility, circle of life, and #winning.

Everyone smile, stop fretting stupid crap, and get to enjoying what's here.

I often see myself clinging to my point of view, as if everything depended upon it. But I have to remind myself that my opinions and ideas have no permanence and will gradually fade away like the blistering summer. What I believe today should hold no more sway over me than what I believed a year ago, a decade ago, or thirty years ago.

In that sense, there is a calming impermanence to selfhood.