Here is my blackbird. Swooping, gliding, rushing, pecking at the ground, and returning to old haunts. The rustle of black feathers and electric white flashes. A glimpse of the inimitable Icteridae, impossible to bind. A blackbird accomplishes little in life that is beyond the moment, and a blackbird treats those few things which do affect its future as if they were for the moment. A blackbird produces nothing but a path behind, and it is not well marked. And yet, we do not think of the blackbird as living a pointless life, we do not view her as unphilosophic, for us she is never static, even when motionless. She may even be a little frightening, though she too must be frightened, in her dynamic power of being-inert. This paper has as many perches as a blackbird and hops from one to the other like a blackbird. It will be as hard to follow and perhaps as directionless as a blackbird. I must therefore say that it is first about doing, next about not doing, and ends, I hope, finding the blackbird within us.

There was a confrontation in my Friends Meeting recently. A fellow stood up and talked about how damned upset he was with the world situation today. He was fed up with all those platitudes like love and greater faith in God because, he claimed, people have been using that garbage for centuries and we still have the mess we have. There is something about the quality of our faith that is lacking. He admitted that he had no idea what it was, but it would be something new. Why can't people get together and resolve their differences instead of trying to kill each other? His as yet unknown facet of our faith would provide the solution. But as it was, our faith wasn't going to get us anywhere except where we had already been. He apologized for being so pessimistic, and sat down.

Another fellow stood up and put his arm on the mantlepiece as he turned around to face the majority of those attending. Tweedy and in a distinguished English accent he told us of Elizabeth Fry, as a picture of her, reading the bible to the women prisoners at Newgate, was hanging on the wall across from where he had been sitting. And he explained that her rewards were the rewards for having patience and faith. That her success story was an answer to the first man's anguish. His example was that she once tried unsuccessfully to save a young and innocent girl from the death sentence. The girl had passed forged bills given to her by her beau, and though it was clear to all that she had had no idea they were counterfeit, she was hanged. But Fry's spirit was not diminished, and she carried on to greater successes.

Funny that this polarity had been the subject of my thoughts all morning. Of course, it had been in very different terms, although I had spent five minutes gazing at the picture of Ms Fry myself. I was thinking of a revelation I'd had some summers before. I was sitting on a mountaintop with the wind and the clouds on a two-day silent fast, far away from everyone else in the world. I was sitting on a rock, with lichen growing under my thighs, and the lichen would pass. But in its place and of its substance would come the small mosses that would in time become the stuff of small flowers. Bigger plants would spring from these when it was their turn to die. What the lichen takes from the rock, would in this way become the soil of a forest. And there too, different waves of trees would overshadow everything else until suffocating themselves and dying, and they too would become the soil for a new breed. Layer after layer, unto dust, unto rock. Unto lichen.

The way the clouds were racing across the sky gave the entire world an unreal feeling and before my eyes the process sped up so I could watch it happening. I was sitting there watching it like a movie when it struck me that that was all I was doing. Not a part of it at all, I didn't even feel welcome in it. At last, and with some desperation, I wrote out on my hand, “I ... will ... be a part ... of the process when .. I die, won't I?” Well no, I didn't have to be so extreme, but in order to accomplish anything I had to dare to do something, something completely foreign. Moving with the world, with the cycles and the racing clouds, requires a conscious decision. The man in tweed knew a lot about Elizabeth Fry; what he didn't know is that I am a direct descendent of her family. In Meeting I realized that the reason I didn't feel a part of things on that mountain is that I usually consider myself to be a part of a straight line process: conception. Ms Fry helped create me, but I can contribute nothing to her creation.

A Christian may say this straight line has a beginning and an end. Aristotle says it's infinite. In view of the cycles I am inclined to agree with Aristotle. But one can lengthen a straight line to bend around the cycle of growth and decay, what I call expanding the radius of a straight line. Of course, or in other words, it can't be done, because when Elizabeth Fry and I are gone, our time is over. The line can't be bent back to us. But it can be bent back to the lichen that takes our place; the answer is that put together, the straight line and the circle form a spiral. And both of our gentlemen can slide down it together. The only difference is that the first man isn't so sure the spiral will last, because he sees it as a straight line, and the second believes that there is just as much left, no matter how far he slides, because he thinks it's a circle.

I think the second gentleman in tweed missed the point of his own lesson, and that the first gentleman almost had his finger on it. Elizabeth Fry did not overcome her obstacles because she had faith in God, but because she had terrific faith that God was directing her to do the right thing. Perhaps these ought to be the same thing, but too often either faith or action is missing. And we too must decide that at some point we are going to fall off the spiral into the sand, that God will snip our telephone cord of life with the violence and stupidity of our species, unless we do something now. This will require the politically incorrect decision that “we” are right, and “they” are wrong. We can't just sit in our homes and believe that everything (like the arms race) will balance out in the end, or contemplate a higher being in our churches. What actions can we take? I say whatever is available. Eventually we will have to do something we know nothing of and are afraid of, like Martin Luther King did, or like me, dying on that mountain, in order to have an effect.

On the other hand,

A truly good man does nothing
Yet leaves nothing undone
A foolish man is always doing
Yet much remains to be done.

Lao Tzu

I know that if I try to tie my shoe while thinking about how it's done, or by doing it too fast, I wind up either accomplishing nothing or tying knots. The Taoists seem to believe that by going out and doing things a plurality of purposes arises, causing antagonism and no forward motion. Life is a little like an escalator that breaks if you walk against its direction. Much better simply to ride it. What will come, will come.

I once knew a woman who was forever unhappy because of a lost lover. He drifted away slowly and then formally ended the relationship. Every time she saw him she made some attempt at reunification, and consequently put him on the defensive. The less success she had the harder she tried, and the harder she tried the harder he made it for her. It was obvious to me that if she would leave him alone for a few months the pressure he felt would evaporate, and she saw some sense in this. She stopped pestering him, but she continued to be depressed. It was because even though she had stopped confronting him openly, she hadn’t quit inside. Every time she saw him her heart squirmed a little bit, and through some magic medium, he felt it. He felt it even when he didn't see her. And she admitted that she felt him feeling it. She had to completely stop thinking of him as someone special, and this without fighting herself. Then and only then might they be able to talk comfortably.

Some months later she was at my house visiting, and my roommate informed her of a new relationship her friend was involved in. I suspect she was already aware of it, but when the information went in her ears, it slid down her throat and filled her heart with a weight she could only relieve with a gushing flow of tears and sobbing. This flow would not subside long enough for her to attempt the walk home. I tried everything I could think of to buck her up. I told her that all Matthew had seen was the two together outside the coffee shop, so there was no way of knowing how serious they were. I'm shocked now by what I told her next. I told her that if it was true, it might be a good thing for her friendship, in the long run. It would help her to be more relaxed around him, because he would no longer be available. I told her a lot of things, but in short, all night long I fed her a bunch of rationalized bull that wouldn't have cheered anybody up.

It annoys me that I didn't just do the natural thing and put my arm around her, maybe wipe away her tears, but instead I did something, the very crime I had accused her of months before. I had a teacher once who told me a similar story. At his father's funeral he was sitting out, particularly hurt, and his relatives circled around him and tried to cheer him up with well thought out, carefully worded, advice. One had the nerve to mention the inheritance, most just said that the father had been suffering and it was a good time for his troubles to end. All my teacher felt like doing was kicking the shit out of all of them. What finally did relieve him was that one of his uncles, in that terribly formal room, began to weep. It seems it is sometimes best to allow things to happen as they come, and not to fight against them. Over-sharpen the blade and the edge will soon blunt.

There is a story in a Zen text about a young man who traveled for hundreds of miles over difficult territory to find the master of his choice. The master lived in the middle of a dense woods and when the young man arrived, the master was sweeping up leaves in front of his hut. The young man greeted the master but received no reply. In fact, no matter what he did, he could not get the master to talk. Without understanding, the boy left the master and set up his own hut in another part of the woods. Years later, while sweeping up leaves in front of his hut, he became enlightened. He ran through the forest back to the master and said “Thank you”.

And Kierkegaard's Abraham walked for three days, knowing what lay at the end of his journey, and not knowing it. One might imagine that in every step on that trip he was barraged with conflicting emotions and thoughts. He must have thought that God would present a saving option and he must have been afraid that he wouldn't. He must have wanted to turn back, cry out, sob on the knees of his son, curse God forever, go home do not walk do not collect $200, run away from the most horrible command a sick God could impose on man. He also must have wanted to be able to stand on the mountain and radiate his love of God and his accomplishment: to feel the resistance of the boy's neck against the blade and feel the warmth of the bright red stream trickling, to taste the cooking flesh before the Lord his God. Most of all we feel that he must have wished against deciding.

But Kierkegaard maintains that Abraham did not torment himself with contradictions . Although these feelings could not but have been in him (for he was a sensitive man), and although the debate, or the knowledge that he had a decision to make must have been obvious to him (for he was an intelligent man), his mission was not a question for him. Every step towards the mountain, for three days, was a decision to do the Lord's bidding, but to put an end to those steps was impossible, and to turn them about was not an option. Every step was a passive submission of the self, in that Abraham had no motives of his own, but every step was a strengthening of the self, in that it was an act of free will. The decision was never made, and it was always being made. Kierkegaard calls this faith, a blind faith that is anything but blind.

Faith in what? Kierkegaard is referring to some kind of Christian faith, or faith in God. But Abraham had an advantage over most of us in so far as he actually heard the word of God himself. Kierkegaard remedies this imbalance and extends the word to us with a complicated argument, which not only clears up the problem but strengthens his philosophical position. There is, however, a price. The clarity and beauty of his story is obscured and consequently, the lucid beauty of faith itself, which is really what the story is about, is lost. For those of us who do not have regular chats with the Almighty, I propose an alternative. Kierkegaard's contest will be destroyed, but what I think is his most important message, the aesthetics of a life like Abraham's three days, is retained.

It was late when we drank. We all thought it was high time to begin. What there had been before, no one could remember. We just said that it was already late. To inquire where each of us came from, at what precise point on the globe we were, or if it were really a globe (and in any case it was not a point), and what day of the month of what year, was beyond our powers. You do not ask such questions when you are thirsty.

Rene Daumal, La Grande Beuverie

Without God telling us to go to the mountain, the question that was out of the question for Abraham must remain a question for us. Where are we going and what will we do when we get there? We do not have the voice of God incarnate to set down the rule by which Abraham lived: one does not question the question. We call it by a new name, more befitting a faith which has no preconceived object: “thirst”. Thirst is an active lack. Thirst recognizes that the next step is completely ours to make or not make, it is an action of our own, independent of any external factors. At the same time it is a giving in to the inevitable, a recognition that while we are making our lives, what will eventually happen is out of our control. Thirst is a resolution of, and a tension between, acting and being acted upon.

Abraham's faith may have been strengthened when the lamb appeared, but at the same time, it was also imperiled. There were no more steps, there was no more question not to be questioned. Abraham could have lost his free will simply because there was nothing more to will. If Abraham had allowed God's act of mercy to become the reason for loving God, the beautiful tension of the journey to the mountain would cease to exist. When one believes a logical argument, it is because there is nothing to doubt. When there is no possibility of doubt, the action of the self counts for very little. Faith would mean nothing if it was unavoidable. Likewise, the thirsty person lives for something which is perhaps in the future, and is perhaps inevitable, but which means very little once it has already happened. To the thirsty person, what is important is drinking, not having drunk.

Most of us live a little to one side of this tension or the other. Either we thirst less than we ought, or we drink too much. We will call drinking too much “drunkenness” and let us call the opposite “sleep.” But as drinking too much leads to passing out, we will see that the two are the same in conclusion. If Abraham had allowed the lamb's appearing to intoxicate him, we have seen that he would have lost control of himself, which is the usual result of over-drinking. And if he had not looked to see the lamb, that is, if he hadn't been thirsty, disaster would have been the result. That his son would have been killed is not so important here as the fact that Abraham, in not looking for the lamb, would have to have had entirely submitted to what he (mistakenly) thought was inevitable. This too is a lack of control. Both drunkenness and sleep then, are a relinquishing of the will.

Heraclitus says a dry soul is best. For present purposes we will assume this means a soul that is wanting water. He also says that becoming water is death. Daumal adds, “and when you're asleep, you don't drink properly”. Perhaps it is clear now that drinking is the same thing as Abraham's steps. One drinks because of thirst; Abraham walked because of faith. One does not drink (act on one's own free will) when one is not thirsty. One who is drunk only drinks to keep himself in his drunken state (Abraham requiring ever more proof from God). He is so swayed by someone else's arguments that he can no longer trust his own. Daumal has the teacher say “Leave me in peace. Each of you must do his own seeking”. Drinking is the emergence of the self in a world of inevitable forces. That some of these forces also act to promote or disrupt the drinking only leads to a bad infinity. Again, Daumal writes: “Listen or don't listen, as you choose, but do not - on any account - forget to drink.”

If life is a game it must be baseball. The sun in the hazy blue sky has already heated up all of the flat surfaces in the stadium except for the green grass which looks cool to the chattering spectators. A man in an undershirt settles back in front of the TV with a beer in his hand. The announcer introduces the next batter, who approaches home, swinging his bat to test the weight. With the bat between his knees now, he stands before the pitcher, rubbing his hands together with a little dirt. Most of the players stand about bored. Chatter louder until the batter positions the bat above his shoulder, swaying a little, back and forth, still testing. The pitcher too, paws the ground with his feet and tests his position. The crowd is hushed now: it is the moment for which they love baseball. As the pitcher winds up a silent electric tension hangs in the air between him and the batter. The pitch, and the flying ball excites the tension and anticipation hits its peak. This, is the moment.

Later, there is a crack, or a swish, or a thud, or nothing at all, and the umpire yells some unintelligible description or the batter is on his way to first. The crowd releases their tension, and are glad or sad depending, but this does not matter like the moment before. Baseball stands out in the world of sports in the length of this moment. The anticipation, the active waiting, the time when the batter's every muscle is wound up and ready to snap in response to whatever ball gets thrown his way; ready to swing with all available energy, or to let the ball by. Sometimes the buzzer sounds in a basketball game while the ball is flying towards the hoop from the other end of the court, and for an instant, there is magic. But the hoop doesn't thirst; it's not the same. Besides, basketball is too hectic to inspire pure tension: it's closer to fear. In baseball, in that moment, it doesn't matter who one is rooting for, the tension in the batter is the same.

When the Washington nine were agwine to win
Old Walter Johnson would actually ease up a little on the opposition
His other teammates, they just didn't get it
They said Walter, “how come you let him hit it?”
Walter Johnson would say with his gentle smile
“Boys, this game's no fun, if you don't get a hit, once in a while”.

Jonathan Richman

Without the hits, the game is no fun, the crowd would go to sleep. But if there were nothing but hits, the crowd would be drunk, not to excitement, but to a waking equivalent of coma. What makes the game worth playing is the faith that something will happen, the countless possible happenings, and most of all, the thirst.

(My blackbird nests.)