Silence is the language of God. Everything else is a poor translation.”
— Rumi
Author: Neal Ross Attinson
Neal Ross Attinson is one of those text-compulsives who feels naked without a keyboard, or at least a a pad and pen. He is unafraid of adverbs, loves astronomy and gastronomy with equally unabashed passion, and lives with/in an eclectic library in Sonoma, California.
Pithyism #0001
IF YOU WANT YOUR NEW and unprecedented Big Event to be a sure-fire failure, bill it as the “First Annual.”
Words to Bring Back (or in this case, Forth): “Wonderpiece”
– Definition: n That creation which evokes awe in the beholder. – Used in a sentence: Have you ever heard Dr. King’s “I Have A Dream” wonderpiece in its entirety? – Why: Though arguably a mere synonym for “art” (at…
Pithyism #5a
OPPOSABLE THUMBS ARE TO HANDS as language is to brains.
Where Are You Most You?
IN CARLOS CASTANEDA’S EPIC FANTASY, The Teachings of Don Juan: A Yaqui Way of Knowledge, his titular shaman Don Juan Matus describes “places of power” — those locations where we can experience deep wisdom and indomitable purpose. No two are…
I’m In (Finally)
IT HAPPENED AS AN ALL-AT-ONCE thunderbolt moment that I wasn’t expecting, but it’s here and I can’t go back: I am now an enthusiastic and sincere convert. Yes, it’s true. Despite my longtime denials and aspersions, the undeniable fact has…
Minute Mitzvah: ALL ONE ALL ONE OK OK!!!
Today’s Task: Know that “God” is One. My dead psychic twin Sputnik, who rediscovered his natal Christian faith around the same time I came back to Judaism, was fond of saying, “Monotheism is not for wimps.” By that he meant…
“Room 101 Amusement Park”
RELAXING IN PUBLIC CAN SOMETIMES bring unexpected consequences. Seated in the Walnut Creek BART station in the spring of 1980, I was reading my well-thumbed copy of 1984. So engrossed was I in Orwell’s pessimistic prose that I didn’t hear…
365 Names of God: “The One Who Spoke and the World Came Into Being”
THE ONE WHO SPOKE AND THE WORLD CAME INTO BEING expresses a pretty profound metaphor, at least to those students of the Torah unbothered by anthropomorphism. Think about the many possible ways to spin a creation myth: divine entities dreaming…
Words to Bring Back: “Quotidian”
– Definition: adj ordinary or everyday, especially when mundane. – Used in a sentence: If you can’t find pleasure in the quotidian, you likely won’t find it anywhere else. – Why: To seize our eyeballs in the current attention economy,…
LAUGH. SEE?”
— J.R. “Bob” Dobbs
Looking Out, Looking In
(A recent sermon.) SOMETIMES, A LITTLE PERSPECTIVE CAN be a good thing. A lot of perspective? Even better. That point is illustrated in this week’s Torah reading, when Joseph admonishes his brothers after they fib that their father told them…