A Better Dragon Story

Time to return to my roots. Let’s talk about Dragons.

Thanks to my friend Assistant Village Idiot, who recently published a post decrying the de-fanging of the dragon in modern western culture. As often happens, AVI goes for the jugular and ends up firing directly into the heart and out the other side making a hole the size of a basketball. I recommend reading his post on dragons because that’s what got me going on this stream of consciousness riff. Then come back here and hang on because some of this might actually make sense. (I’m not editing this – it comes out how it comes out- and I’m feeling pretty ranty tonite)

So, why would anyone really care about how this culture, our culture, views and portrays dragons. Well boys and girls, it’s all about the story. Our culture is essentially shaped by the kind of stories we tell and hear, and the way we tell and hear them. We ourselves, as atoms of culture, are shaped by the stories we engage ourselves in. Why do you think it is that movies and television are such powerful influences on our culture? It’s because they tell stories in an especially powerful and compelling way and they tell lots of them. We are constantly being washed by stories – washed and soaked and saturated and waterlogged and marinated. The stories we hear most get into our bones and we can’t ever really get them out except by replacing them with new stories.

Dragons are a narrative object. They are antagonist, protagonist, creators of conflict, vessels of metaphor. Dragons arise from and manifest the worst and most pernicious and evil aspects of ourselves and the world we live in. Dragon is the embodiment of evil great and evil small – and the size has little to do with how dangerous it is.

If there is no evil, if Dragons are really our friends, then does that change the way we think about evil? Are we more willing to live with our own personal dragons? For most of our Dragons are personal. Evil is not all Hitler and Osama. It’s easy to look at those goons and say, “Well, at least I haven’t killed 6 million jews today. I must be alright.” That’s letting yourself off the hook too lightly.

What are your Dragons? Be honest now. You have them. Here is one classic list from the Ancient Writings: “sexual immorality, impurity and debauchery; idolatry and witchcraft; hatred, discord, jealousy, fits of rage, selfish ambition, dissensions, factions and envy; drunkenness, orgies, and the like.” There are other lists, but this is a good one to start with. I might also add laziness, greed, fear, ignorance, injustice, oppression, slavery, addiction and apathy. Think these Dragons don’t live in you? Think again. Look again.

You must kill them. There is no room for truce or parlay. Instead of chatting with it, our Parents ought to have asked for the Angel’s sword and lopped the head off the serpent in the Garden. no. The only right response is to go after him hammer and tongs, no mercy, to the death. Using a different metaphor, Jim Rohn puts it this way:

"You cannot take the mild approach to the weeds in your mental garden. You have got to hate weeds enough to kill them. Weeds are not something you handle; weeds are something you devastate."

So here is a story for you. You discover a dragon ruining the kingdom of your Life. So you ride out to slay it. You call it by name and run to battle. You thrust and cut. You are thrown down. You rise again. You beat and bleed. You fight on and on until, with the help of Dragon Bane, you slay the beast. The worm lies before you and you place your foot on it's head, blood dripping from your sword and sweat from your brow. You shout a challenge to the other serpents to let them know that you are coming for them too.

I like that story.

Uprooting Evil - Jesus, Sarcasm and You

Sarcasm is the close cousin of insult. Sarcasm is sharper, less blunt than insult. If insult is a cudgel, sarcasm is a knife, with a serrated edge.

Sarcasm can be bitter and belittling and when used indiscriminately, it can wound deeply. Yet when something truly deserves to be belittled, there are fewer weapons more useful than the cutting remark. We tend to confuse love, goodness and kindness with mere niceness. We forget that the truest love is at times the most demanding, abrasive and hard. Sarcasm can be used to shock the foolish out of their folly.

The prophets, the Apostles, and Jesus are most excellent examples of the use of sarcasm to shed light on the madness of their time. Remember Elijah mocking the priest of Baal by suggesting that their god must be taking a dump? Or Jesus calling the Pharisees a brood of vipers or whitewashed tombs. How many times did Jesus say to his disciples variations of “are you deaf or are you just stupid?” Then there is Paul, in Galatians 5, where he suggests that if a certain group of Christians who are fixated on keeping Jewish law including circumcision are so set on it, they may as well just complete the job and whack off the whole deal.

(For a more complete treatment of Sarcasm in the scripture, read A Serrated Edge by Douglas Wilson. It has some flaws, but it makes a strong case for not always being nice, but always being good. Go here to read how Wilson acknowledges and fills in some of the holes.)

Such language is not fit for greeting cards. People, especially religious people, who use such language today are thought to be too rough, to angry. The point is, however, that certain things, certain people, certain actions, certain error demands rough treatment. It is to be gone after, hammer and tongs, full tilt, no mercy. It is fine to be positive and to seek out the good in things, but to deny the negative, the evil and the wrong, to pretend it is not there and to not even acknowledge it is folly of the highest order.

Jim Rohn, a favorite speaker of mine, talks of the importance of the negative. It is not only necessary to plant and tend the flowers and vegetables in your garden, but you must also pull the weeds. And you have to go at the weeds, ideally with a sharp hoe, perhaps on your hands and knees, but you cannot neglect to pull the weeds. If you do they will grow up to choke out your garden. You must have no mercy. In the same way, it is necessary to identify and recognize folly, stupidity and evil for exactly what they are and go at them to destroy them, giving no quarter.

As Jim Rohn says, “Sometimes you have to love like a mother and hate like a father…And sometimes you have to love like a father and hate like a mother.” Hate those habits that would destroy us – hate laziness, worry, ignorance, fear, apathy. Hate those things which will lead us to poverty, disease, wrecked marriages, ruined lives. Hate those things which bring oppression, injustice, and prejudice. Hate them and make it your life’s mission to destroy them. If you focus just on the good alone, to the total exclusion of rooting out the evil, you let evil have it’s way too long and pretty soon it can own your garden.

And so sarcasm, used rightly, is a tool for good in uprooting evil. It certainly takes wisdom to use it rightly, just as it takes wisdom to use a sharp knife. When using sarcasm on others, you had best be sure that you have the facts straight, and that you aim your sarcasm at the right target. Sarcasm is not a thing to use lightly – for the same reason that I don’t give knives to small children. But when it’s needed, it is not only OK, it is good to have the right tool.

Mary Oliver

Just discovered a poet. Mary Oliver. Check this out.

Wild Geese

You do not have to be good.
You do not have to walk on your knees
For a hundred miles through the desert repenting.
You only have to let the soft animal of your body
love what it loves.
Tell me about despair, yours, and I will tell you mine.
Meanwhile the world goes on.
Meanwhile the sun and the clear pebbles of the rain
are moving across the landscapes,
over the prairies and the deep trees,
the mountains and the rivers.
Meanwhile the wild geese, high in the clean blue air,
are heading home again.
Whoever you are, no matter how lonely,
the world offers itself to your imagination,
calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting-
over and over announcing your place
in the family of things.

Lawn Lament

Mowing the lawn is stupid.

I'd rather:

1. Burn it every couple weeks.
2. Rent it to a farmer who will mow it for hay 3 times a year.
3. Till it under and sow it in wildflowers.
4. Buy a goat in the spring. Let it eat my lawn all summer. Turn it into shish kabobs and curry in October.

I had a friend recently described to me as a "Lawn Nazi." I guess that means that he is extremely zealous and exacting in his approach to lawn care. I guess that makes me a "Lawn Communist" because it's the most opposite thing to a fascist of the front yard that I can think of.

My lawn mower broke, and I ignored the growing grass for about 4 weeks, hoping it would just go away. Parts of the lawn reached almost 8 inches high. I actually kind of liked it that way. I bought a used mower for $75 and knocked the grass down today. I'm not sure whether it was a much better mower than my old one, but it sure seemed to work better. Of course, the blade was probably actually sharp, so that instead of bludgeoning the grass into submission, I was actually cutting it.

Whatever. Mowing the lawn is stupid. Really stupid.

The Journal

Today is a bit of an anniversary. I have been keeping a journal for one week. Whoopee.

Not a blog, you understand. This is a real live honest to goodness write-it-with-a-pen-in-a-book journal. I’ve tried this kind of thing before with limited success. This time I think I’ve figured out how to make it work. The secret seems to be to think less, and write less.

Journaling has become this big emotional psychological introspective meditative spiritual exercise. What happened to the good old days when a journal just recorded some of the things that happened today? Not that there won’t be moments of emotional writing. It’s just that I really don’t have time for that, especially after I wring myself dry writing this blog for the three of you that read it.

I aim this to be a journal that I don’t mind other people reading. Does that mean stuff will get left out? Sure. But I’m really seeing these books as a legacy for my children. How did Dad spend his life? At least from the age of 44, now they should have an answer to that. Maybe they can learn some lessons from it. Of course, there is always the chance that they won't really care...(sigh***)

I’m using the notebooks produced by Moleskines (MOW-luh-SKEE-nah). I like the size and shape, and I like the idea of having a set of these labeled by dates, sitting on the shelves. The name is also fun to say with an Italian accent.

I gotta go. I haven’t written about today yet.

Political Bubblings

You may have noticed that I'm not really big on writing about political and economic events - that stuff that commonly passes for news. Mostly I am aware of it, but it seems that a lot of it I simply have little or no influence over. So when things happen like Karl Rove announcing his retirement, or the stock market goes haywire, I hear them, note them with a certain dispassionate interest, and move on my way.

But this Karl Rove thing keep popping into my mind. I'm not sure why.

I have never really liked George W Bush. I voted for him once, but with misgivings at the time. I felt then that he was the better option (and he probably was) but I had a vague fear that he simply lacked something the office requires. I am not a Bush basher. I am a registered Independent, but have traditionally voted along Republican lines. For the past several years, I find that both sides of the aisle have their collective heads quite firmly implanted up their collective bungholes. I have been rankled by the so called Religious Right's unswerving, flimsily structured support for Bush -- as if investing him with a prophetic office he cannot wear. Even worse, they are in such danger of expecting the government to usher in God's kingdom -- and then being shocked and disappointed when government can't actually deliver. These are my people! That they can be guilty of such folly blows my mind. at the same time, because they are my people, I know where they are coming from.

I have been even more deeply rankled by what appears to be the Republican's inability to really understand what the Evangelical Block really wants, but is more than willing to use them as a political stepping stone cum cudgel. I'm afraid the Rove really is the "architect" of the Bush presidency, and it's effects upon the Republican Party. If so, I think his retirement may have enormous implications, even at this late date. Of course, there's still Cheney...

So I don't really pay much concious attention to politics, but I find that it does bubble around in the back of my brain quite a lot. The problem is I'm always afraid that, although I have opinions, I really pretty ignorant about the whole things, and would do better to just shut up.

Of course, ignorance has never really stopped me from spouting opinions about other things.

Car-ma all over

In case you care, the cause of the pink puddle in my driveway has been diagnosed and repaired. It was a bent dipstick tube. Easy to miss, easy to fix.

As for the bumper of the Outback, the auto insurance companies are working things out. I may not have to pay anything.

That same day, my wife's purse with wallet, keys and cell phone went missing. It has been found. It is now back in her possession.

And the cycle of life continues. Worrying accomplishes nothing. It's just a dragon that must die.

Rodrigo y Gabriela

If you seek good new music, let me point you to one of my new favorites. Acoustic Rock Guitar duo Rodrigo y Gabriela.

This is not flamenco. It is metal gone acoustic filtered through Mexico via Ireland. Yeah you read it right. Click the link and go to their Myspace page so you can listen to a few of their tunes. It's all available on I Tunes.

As you listen, note that it's just two guitars and four hands making all these sounds -- even the percussion. Dig that crazy beat man.