THE OLDER I GET, THE older “old” gets — and the younger “young” seems.
Brokedown Palate (A Prosatio Silban Tale)
SITTING ON THE SODDEN DRIVER’S bench of his tilted and storm-mired galleywagon, warm rain dribbling into crevices public and private, Prosatio Silban briefly flirted with his own demise.
The impulse, though not its brevity, was the oldest of his three reflexive reactions to unanticipated misfortune. But neither giddy laughter nor philosophical resignation seemed suited to the billowing mist soaking his body and soul, so dense that the plaited yak-hair reins in his left hand stretched tautly forward into apparent nothingness.
The Cook For Any Price sighed and shook his head before calling a single hoarse syllable into the all-enclosing grey wall before him.
Top 10 Metaphoragings: 2021
AND SO, AS OUR EARTH races to catch up to the orbital location arbitrarily assigned to “New Year’s Day,” let us pause and reflect on the year that’s passed (bloggishly speaking, anyway):
My Favorite Jewish Joke – 130 views
Far and away, the winner for Most-Viewed Post of 2021 was the one whose punchline is the simple but effective, “Moses, do whatever the hell you want.” (And no, that’s not a spoiler. It is, however, a trenchant understanding of / comment on Jewish practice.)
365 Names of God: “The Light of Eternal Mind” – 71 views
We’ve had a lot of fun with the “365 Names of God” series, including one of my own personal favorites.
Prosatio Silban and the Amazing Replicator
SMALL KINDNESSES CAN OVERCOME GREAT cruelties, as Prosatio Silban discovered one day to his everlasting pleasure.
The circumstances began with the beefy cook reflecting on yet another boisterous morning crowd surrounding his painted menu-board in the Itinerants’ Quarter of Pormaris’ famous South Marketplace. If only there were some way to serve my clientele without their jostling each other for primacy, he thought. I am grateful for their coin – but my board, and seating, is not up to their numbers.
Prosatio Silban and the Centuried Stew
IF YOU’RE GOING TO STAKE your reputation on a single product, it had better be a good one.
The large, one-eyed woman behind the food-stall counter was brusque but not unfriendly. “We have stew,” she told Prosatio Silban. “That’s all we have. That’s all you need.”
365 Names: The Encounterable
THE ENCOUNTERABLE IS A NAME I invented about three minutes ago (as of this writing: 2112.12 @ 2150), but is meant to express one understanding of the Consciousness inherent in the universe. As written elsewhere, I do not “believe” in a God* that can be prayed to or beseeched, but rather One that can be experienced, either through unexpected spontaneity or by creating a patterned context for such an experience (through disciplined and deep meditation or contemplation, say). “Belief” doesn’t quite enter into the equation; no words can fully express the encounter’s undeniable and all-unifying immediacy. As Maimonides likes to say, “Those who know, know.”
Prosatio Silban and the Awesome Spectacle
DESPITE A FERVENT BELIEF IN those of the Flickering Gods he felt had not been sanitized into irrelevance, it had been long since Prosatio Silban had thought of Them as answering Their adherents’ every prayer.
Not that this stopped him from asking, mind you. As the pithyism went: “Sometimes the answer to a prayer is ‘no’ – assuming there be any answer at all.” And though the beefy cook could perhaps rely over-much on the dicey art of divine intervention, even he had to admit that some prayers were more effective than others.