WHAT CAN I SAY?

Over the last several months I have limited my reading to considerably heavy material. The major portion of this reading has been biography with a diversion to Egypt after the Romans and a treatise on Art.
Partly due to the current economy, the dip in interest in people wanting to learn what I know about calligraphy and photography and the cancellation of two terms of my classes through Wake Tech I have had to set my hands and mind to things I consider important.
Another factor is that I am a grandfather and the things that I learned in my many years of schooling don't relate to what is being taught in schools today. I know what I know and can remember when I came to know it. I can cite resources and provide useful bibliographies, but much of what I am best at in photography is very technical and many people want results without understanding the processes involved.
I have done all the historic, wet photographic processes. The caustic, malodorous chemistry is foreign to most people who click and have prints appear in their local kiosks or mailboxes. I enjoy all the techniques - and even have major flashbacks when I smell freshly printed photos or paper that has been lithographed or screen-printed.
My calligraphy has origins centuries old. I learned the old languages in school and then I learned tool making and then learned to make letters. This primal process is part of the reason I like creating hand-made tools to make beautiful handwritten letters.
I noticed that the calligraphy bibliography for my classes were a list of books that I was thrilled to discover as I began my own exploration of the art, but that was over thirty years ago. Many of those books are older than the students that come to class.
My brother died during the winter. That was a wrong, sad thing. He was younger and generally been stronger than I had been for most of our lives. That ended the occasional decent, strained conversations we had had for decades. Our stories are really hidden and treasured in my heart.
I was also isolated for several months with little real connection to the people with whom I had talked about things that mattered.
One cool thing is that over twenty thousand people have viewed the few calligraphic videos I have posted on You Tube and I get notes and questions about writing from around our globe. Some people somewhere are curious about calligraphy.
I also got a note that on some recent, unknown date, the staff at SmugMug, my web hosting company, had chosen one of my images as their “Photo Of The Day”. Comments came but were generally one to six word expressions and were void of any technical content or critique.
Throughout all this time, I had these heavy books and heavy thoughts in my head.
After days of simple actions or answers, I was ten again. I would retire to my space and read. Now I was reading good books by a younger generation with 20-30 years of additional research.
I can give way too much information and people who know me that when people are looking for a sound bite answer and not a symphony.
Then I thought, “I have never owned or used Cliff's Notes.” Most of the time I don't think quickly when there are big things to consider because I want to consider well and respond well.
I grew up in a part of the world where stories and storytellers were revered.
Another thought quickly followed: “There are fewer and fewer people who want the story, especially the long story.”
Recently I went into a used bookstore with a single purpose. I went to buy the biggest book in the store and then read it. My shoulders got a bit tight after horsing the thing around, but it is read.
There are more corollaries related to this inward and outward activity.
In any given group or relationship conversations tend to get shorter and people seem to develop a shorthand system of expressions. Body language as well as spoken words change. Sometimes this is good and sweet because of the natural, intimate "knowing" that goes beyond words. However, in many cases, routine is emptiness.
The best and most exciting times are when we are free to talk about anything with any emotion without fear of complaint or repercussion. Real discussions do clarify issues when the beginning premise is that no matter what is covered, the relationship is solid.
Sometime silence, even long silences, speaks more deeply than things verbalized. Just being and being present and aware is enough,
The 300 years from the closing prophecy of Malachi to the prophecy of John the Baptist and the ministry of Jesus did not alter God's relationship with Israel nor did it mean that God's purpose of redeeming humanity was off track.
I believe that from the Word of creation to the end of all days, the Word of God is a single utterance. I also feel that the various touches of hands and meetings of lip in true love are really a continuum - the kiss of a lifetime and the presence that makes hearts complete.
Openness and acceptance can, however, disintegrate.
There is a diplomacy we develop and we agree not to use certain expressions or talk about certain subjects. Connections suffer as badly as the early negotiations that quibbled over whether or not the Viet Nam conflict would be settled at a round or a square table.
Because vocabulary and the range of allowable subjects gets more narrow, things don't get said or done because we fear being misunderstood.
My favorite euphemist, Antonio Porchia, observed, “I know what I have said. I do not know what you have heard.”
Maybe the early Beatles had it worked out best. Everything they did was commercial, fun and fast. All their early hits were two and a half minutes. They met, cranked out songs and had fun. However, their early, successful years seem eclipsed by their falling apart. Modern interpretations of "The Beatles" have turned them into icons one would almost expect in a chapel ceiling as well as in a Cirque du Soleil homage in Las Vegas.
I have a dear friend trying to work out fundamental and complex Biblical language. I'm engaged with him in this because the Aramaic and Greek that I can read give wonderfully deep expressions to a very simple question and the implications are profound. The words are there and how they are understood and lived out is interesting. However, this is not a text or a subject that would make for comfortable conversation in any church meeting a traditional setting. This translation and interpretation will be personally expressed.
My current heavy read has to do with a familiar topic, but is raising wonderfully powerful thoughts. The book is a text and has to do with what the words liberty, freedom and unity.
The very first serious book I ever read was by John Gardner and is Excellence: Can We Be Equal And Excellent Too? I invite you to find and read a copy. You will find it in some libraries and at Amazon. It will be a dollar or two well spent and may settle some issues and raise others.
I was weaned on the teat of Virginia history. Only my bravest friends ask me about general or American history without first drinking AMP to hang around for the whole answer that may spew forth. However, it was just within the last few weeks that I learned that our (Virginia's) grand Commonwealth flag and motto was to be used in some early state coinage. “Sic Semper Tyrannus” with our Lady Liberty stomping the snake of tyranny. Coins are different from flags and there needed to be an obverse to the coin. Some Virginia gentlemen sent one draft to Thomas Jefferson, a brilliant man of books, words and engineering, the suggestion that would have burst the hearts of the Puritans in the northern colonies. Their suggestion was that the obverse of the coin should read in Latin, “Liberty For Leisure”. The idea was bad and rejected. My German grand folk took so much joy in work that seemed to be their pleasure and liberty to them was enough in the pantry and in the bank.
Our current President began with much said about hopes and dreams. At a recent “Tea Party”, the ever-entertaining Sarah Palin asked the group, “How's that hopey, dreamy thing going for ya?”
For many, the hopey and dreamy is still as unnerving as the continual shifting of the earth's plates and many are just waiting for the next tremor or cataclysm.
We know better than the old schoolyard saying, “Sticks and stones my break my bones but words can never hurt me.”
Words can crush, kill, bully and even, as we have seen recently, lead some people to commit suicide. The kids that inflicted the pain on the victim were not “killing softly” and are as guilty for that teen girl's death as if they had used knives or guns.
Guttermouthing is not effective communication. Yelling makes words and thoughts hard to hear. Lying is prohibited in cultures predating the arrival of the Ten Commandments, the first of hundreds of rules that guide God's Chosen and any other civil culture.
Agreed upon taboo topics and the unspoken kill relationships more like cancer than gunfire. However, the sick wounded and dead souls find no solace.
It is amazing that I go deliberately and absolutely deaf when I hear any word spoken with the flavor of "whine". The grandchildren are picking up on that.
Truthing seems to get us into trouble just as easily. Unless we agree before we start that we will be closer because of what is said we cannot open our souls and express our feelings and know that after the words float between our hearts, we have gained in the communication and put our whole person at rest and peace and regained our union because of the strength of liberty.
This, today, is what I am feeling.
But, what can I say?
© tim www.timjohnsonphoto.com