Love Winter When the Plant Says Nothing

O little forests, meekly

Touch the snow with low branches!

O covered stones

Hide the house of Growth!

Secret

Vegetal words,

Unlettered water,

Daily zero.

Pray undistracted

Curled tree

Carved in steel -

Buried zenith!

Fire, turn inward

To your weak fort,

To a burly infant spot,

A house of nothing.

O peace, bless this mad place:

Silence, love this growth.

O silence, golden zero

Unsetting sun

Love winter when the plant says nothing. 1963

from In the Dark Before Dawn: New Selected Poems, by Thomas Merton

Bible Reading Log

For anyone interested, I have started a bible reading log over on posterous. You can find it here: http://rheimbrobrl.posterous.com/

I explain a little bit more here, but basically the goal is to read at least a chapter a day, and the keep track of my thoughts on the log. I have started with the Prophet Isaiah.

Bye Bye Facebook!

I have decided to delete my facebook account. It is something I have been repeatedly contemplating in the last six months but I have not ever gotten up the nerve to follow through and actually do it. There are a few reasons I have made this decision. I am not entirely pleased with the shifts facebook keeps making regarding privacy, however that is not enough on its own to make me want to bolt. Over the last few years it has simply sucked out too much time from my days to be beneficial anymore. I don’t know that it will necessarily keep me off of the computer any more than I am not, but it may at least be step in that direction.

The final impetus for making this decision has been coming across this site: http://suicidemachine.org/ While it is currently blocked from accessing facebook, and would be a much more interesting way of doing it, it won’t be so hard to go through the steps myself. At this point in time I have not decided to let go of twitter, as I find it useful for reasons outside of simply social networking; but even that may come up on the chopping block one day.

So, I have decided that this Friday will be the day I make the final delete. If you need any of my contact information, the time to write it down is now J

Here are some ways you can still reach me:

Phone: 513-201-7424 or 513-550-9992

Email: rheimbro@gmail.com (also works for pretty much anything Google related)

Blog: http://revolutionarytradition.blogspot.com

And if you are interested at all in any of the articles I ever post on here, then you can keep up with me on twitter or google reader.

Twitter: http://twitter.com/rheimbro

Google reader: http://www.google.com/reader/shared/rheimbro

Peace!

Hauerwas on Healthcare: Learning How to Die

“Questionnaire” (a poem by Wendell Berry)

“Questionnaire” (a poem by Wendell Berry)

1. How much poison are you willing
to eat for the success of the free
market and global trade? Please
name your preferred poisons.

2. For the sake of goodness, how much
evil are you willing to do?
Fill in the following blanks
with the names of your favorite
evils and acts of hatred.

3. What sacrifices are you prepared
to make for culture and civilization?
Please list the monuments, shrines,
and works of art you would
most willingly destroy.

4. In the name of patriotism and
the flag, how much of our beloved
land are you willing to desecrate?
List in the following spaces
the mountains, rivers, towns, farms
you could most readily do without.

5. State briefly the ideas, ideals, or hopes,
the energy sources, the kinds of security,
for which you would kill a child.
Name, please, the children whom
you would be willing to kill.