Deepak Chopra couldn’t get it more wrong about India

Deepak Chopra couldn’t get it more wrong; there’s no smoke without a fire.

by Stan Faryna

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Cold Play, Lost

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Deepak Chopra’s recent article, Is India Having A Crisis of Soul?, is as disappointing and impoverished as the painful situation being reflected upon. You can read his old guard apology here:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/deepak-chopra/is-india-having-a-crisis-_b_3017979.html

Who would imagine that inherited and entrenched moral bankruptcy can ever be reversed by the economic empowerment of crony capitalists, communists, socialists, and nationalists equally exploiting the human laborer and the divisive prejudices of the Indian population?

Only those who share the ambition, irreverence, amorality, and lost innocence of The White Tiger a la Aravind Adiga.

More of that here:

http://www.slate.com/blogs/future_tense/2013/04/04/ahmed_rajib_haider_asif_mohiuddin_farhana_ahmed_bloggers_in_bangladesh_face.html

And here:

http://www.zcommunications.org/id-rather-not-be-anna-by-arundhati-roy

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If there is a change going on and a soul is awakening, there must be a long, terrible dark night - la noche oscura del alma. The worst is yet to be.

Perhaps, it will take years to roll down like waters. And I’m not talking about a recovery. That’s something else completely.

Deepak’s kind of staggering, teetering, zombie-esque, happy talk may provide some “needed” false reassurance to the foreign investor, foreign outsourcer and the native electorate, but soul work (like great blessing) is messy, takes seemingly forever, and hurts more than anyone would willingly bear.

Deepak Chopra couldn’t get it more wrong about India. Not surprisingly – his commentary about America always sounds like propaganda – ever unenlightened. It is also no surprise that my comment to his article was censored.

But however offensive my comment may be to Deepak, it is not a eulogy. I did not come here to bury India, but encourage her in these trying times.

Because there is always hope for the meek, the poor in spirit and those who hunger and thirst for righteousness. For Indians. Americans. Everyone.

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Stan Faryna
04 April 2013
Fairfax, Virginia

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Recent blog posts:

The Adventures of The Corsair

What is Love?

Season 3 Finale of The Walking Dead

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If you got something from this blog post, please like it, 5 star it, and/or subscribe.

What is love? Baby don’t hurt me…

Who am I? Who are you? What can we hope? What must we do?

by Stan Faryna

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Haddaway, What is Love?

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What is Love?

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What is Love?

Baby don’t hurt me…

Baby don’t hurt me, no more.

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I don’t know why you’re not fair.

I give you my love but you don’t care.

So what is right and what is wrong?

Give me a sign.

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That’s the words Haddaway sings. And I wonder why a song about love is so full of fear and unanswered questions. And I wonder why this song comes to mind as I reflect upon my calling. To do and encourage good. To avoid and oppose evil. To walk in beauty.

There are words written on the wall of a small bedroom. And if words are written on the wall, know they were written with great passion and desperation. I know this about words written upon a wall because I wrote my last love letter and farewell to my ex-wife upon our bedroom wall.

But the words that I want to share with you are not mine. These words were written by a hero. A woman. A saint. Someone with whom I shall never compare in virtue and purity of heart.

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Do it anyway

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People are often unreasonable, irrational, and self-centered. Forgive them anyway.

If you are kind, people may accuse you of selfish, ulterior motives. Be kind anyway.

If you are successful, you will win some unfaithful friends and some genuine enemies. Succeed anyway.

If you are honest and sincere people may deceive you. Be honest and sincere anyway.

What you spend years creating, others could destroy overnight. Create anyway.

If you find serenity and happiness, some may be jealous. Be happy anyway.

The good you do today, will often be forgotten. Do good anyway.

Give the best you have, and it will never be enough. Give your best anyway.

In the final analysis, it is between you and God. It was never between you and them anyway.

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And therein is a powerful and deep answer to our searching questions… what is love.

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Gustav Klimt’s Adam and Eve

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Love anyway

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Do it anyway. Because to not love… is to not be. To not do it (love), is you not being you.

Regardless of the agonies and pain, the countless, lesser defeats and disappointments, the unanswered questions and prayers… do it anyway.

Love anyway. Because you and I were made to love strongly, wholeheartedly – like star light that searches the distance and darkness of deep space.

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Just to be clear, I’m not talking about sex. I’m talking about how to live. How to lead. How to be.

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Stan Faryna
02 April 2013
Fairfax, Virginia

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Recent blog posts:

The Adventures of The Corsair

Season 3 Finale of The Walking Dead

When your best is suck

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If you got something from this blog post, please like it, 5 star it, and/or subscribe.

WOW – Season 3 Finale of The Walking Dead

Thoughts about the Season 3 Finale of The Walking Dead

by Stan Faryna

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Enigma, Return to Innocence

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My thoughts about tonight’s episode of The Walking Dead may surprise you. My intention is not to hand out a fist full of spoilers.

Hristos a înviat!

Truth can be found in the strangest of places.

Even in a television show about a zombie apocalypse. Even in one of the bloodiest episodes of The Walking Dead…

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Andrea: “No one can make it alone now…”

Daryl Dixon: “Never could.”

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No one can make it alone

DUH!

This is an ontological truth – we don’t need the world to end to understand this truth. We don’t need an apocalypse (zombie or otherwise) to understand that as much as we have a right to be here, so others also have the right to be here.

Deeper than this is the truth that we are here not just for ourselves, but also for others. Just as they are here for us.

As my friend, Jack King, often says – We are connected. In his book, One With The People, Jack tells the story of a young, Native American girl, that receives wisdom. Among the things she learns on her journey to become a leader, is the sacred circle that connects us and gives us meaning as participants in the goodness, wonder and beauty of Creation.

Check out Jack’s book here:
http://www.amazon.com/One-People-Everything-Need-Leader/dp/1482658623/

Disclaimer: I receive no financial compensation whatsoever by this link to Jack’s book or by the sale of his book.

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No one can make it alone

If we fail to understand this truth, together – this broken world will fall apart. And nothing will save me, you or the ones you love from the horror, pain and anguish of what comes with that.

No amount of ammunition. No store of canned food and MREs. No level of preps will save you and yours.

No pre-pubescent Carl Rimes kind of psychotic bravado will take back what was lost – a world in which we had every opportunity to love, to shine bright and unlock a greater human potential. And that is something we all need to think about. Sooner or later. Hopefully, sooner.

We want something more.

And that something more is us. Together, we are something more.

No one can make it alone

Do you get it?

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Stan Faryna
31 March 2013
Fairfax, Virginia

Winning Takes Care of Everything

by Stan Faryna

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Michael Jackson, Man in the Mirror

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There is a small, outspoken minority that are offended by Nike’s celebratory ad of Tiger Wood’s recent PGA triumph as he climbs to No. 1 in Golf.

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Nike’s position on the message,”winning takes care of everything,” is that it’s about Tiger’s game – it is not a tongue in cheek reply to the scandals that dethroned the golfer in 2009. But no one is buying Nike’s official statement. Any controversy actually feeds the hype. And, honestly, who is going to passionately argue that winning doesn’t take care of everything?

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Sex and Reciprocity. And other Social Media DOHs

by Stan Faryna

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ATB, Ecstasy

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Marjorie Clayman reflects here on the triumphs and defeats of the Medici as an inspiration for social media success. It may even apply to gaming. And sex? Yes, sex too.

Wealth, power and influence – for the obvious reasons – will always be interesting.

But I have occasionally wondered whether or not the meek, the poor in spirit, and the pure of heart can profit by the ways and means of the wealthy, powerful and influential. Are these ways and means the rising tides that can lift small boats?

This was, in fact, the hope, promise and merit of capitalism.

Reciprocity, itself, is a greater challenge than we may care to admit – especially when everyone, equally, wants something for nothing.

However, if reciprocity is to be providential and reciprocal, it must provide an equity in results – not action.

The economics of sex should be fairly obvious in regard to results and satisfaction. I hope you can forgive me for not illustrating the intimate details of our expectations, results and satisfaction. But I would like to imagine that you get my point.

Likewise, if you mention me on your Facebook fan page and bring me to 50,000 eyes, my mentioning you on your fan page to 100 eyes is not a reciprocity. Reciprocity requires me to commit myself to liking a 100 posts (or more), supporting your posts with encouraging comments for months and months AND sharing your posts across Facebook, G+, etc. across a year.

Who does that?! Who tries?

Sadly, it is the rare individual who pays his/her social debt. And rarer for the individual who pays it gladly. And this, I fear, is why more people do not succeed in their ambitions – social, game-wise, friendship, or everlasting love.

Alas- even the meek, the poor in spirit, and the pure of heart seem to lack a basic understanding of economics. And equitable reciprocity.

Of course, I could be mistaken. But I also could be a little bit right.

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Stan Faryna
25 March 2013
Fairfax, Virginia

Are you down to bang with a friend? The Evilest App Ever

Are you down to bang with a friend? The Evilest App Ever!

by Stan Faryna

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Do you secretly want to have sex with people you know in real life and/or people you’ve met online?

Now you can make that happen. Easily.

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Taylor Swift, Trouble

Bang With Friends

There’s a lot of buzz about a social sex app, Bang With Friends. And the buzz is going to get a lot louder. Because it’s social. Because it’s about sex. Because this is the kind of topic that gets attention and clicks.

Jure Klepic writes about Bang With Friends in the Huffington Post here:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/jure-klepic/bang-with-friends-app_b_2900671.html

There’s a National College Ministry warning by Adam Jeske here:

http://www.intervarsity.org/blog/evilest-app-ever

Mark Wilson of Fast Company wrote about Bang With Friends here:

http://www.fastcodesign.com/1671768/bang-with-friends-the-beginning-of-a-sexual-revolution-on-facebook

Social Sex is the new killer app

Watching the movie, The Social Network (2010), one gets the impression that Facebook was actually designed for the hook up. Zuckerberg’s own apparent sociopathic disempathy may (or may not) confirm such speculation. [grin] But if so, that only speaks to the high value of the Facebook business model. “Sin” as defined in a college human geography class (a long time ago) is always “good” business and the fact that porn has been the MVP in the Internet growth equation (since forever) is just more proof that sin makes money.

Note: I do not suggest that the sin business model has high moral, spiritual or cultural value. That said, Bang With Friends (BWF) is no surprise. And it’s going to get worse in the sense that social sex is going to become more visible.

Social sex, of course, will out compete less compelling platforms and services in terms of engagement. Just as porn always has and will continue to do so. Popular social sex participants will come to command greater attention, engagement and transaction than the tastemakers, thought leaders, cheerleaders, etc. for all the obvious reasons. It goes without saying that enlightenment doesn’t hold a candle to sex – nor can a revival of traditional values save us from the “license” that we are willing to pay for.

Here’s the problem – unlocked potential swings both ways: good and evil. And so long as the market and money is the ultimate arbiter of value, utopia will always look a lot like hell. Or Sin City,

Trouble, Trouble, Trouble

Double, double toil and trouble;
Fire burn, and caldron bubble. 

- Macbeth, Act IV, Scene 1

Is Bang With Friends trouble? Well, Britney Spears sings about it. Trouble – that is.

The trouble with BWF is that it reduces the ordinary challenges to our getting into trouble. Such challenges allowed some of us to exercise self-control. As I toured BWF, I felt the adrenaline, fear, shock, shame, and horror when I saw the “Down to Bang” button below pictures of…

1. Friends
2. Relatives
3. Lovers or Spouses of Friends and Relatives
4. Grown-Up Children of Friends

And I didn’t have to push any buttons.

Troubles and bad decisions often begin with a certain coy presumption of innocence: My being “Down to Bang You” is like a “like”, right?

I can see it now – the fun and “harmless” exchanges on Twitter, Facebook and beyond:

I’ll bang you!

Bang me PLEASE!

Bang me and I’ll bang you back.

The dark seed, however, is sown and the realization of trouble shall be decided more forcefully by interest and opportunity than conscience and consequence. With certain trepidation, I predict that 1 out of 3 friends will get into trouble – because the ordinary challenges to sin have been neatly removed from virtue’s armory.

Pray for us!

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Stan Faryna
21 March 2013
Fairfax, Virginia

Can you make supernormal profit (money) without being evil?

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by Stan Faryna

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Eminem, Love the way you lie

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Google says point blank, dogmatically, and in bold…

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You can make money without doing evil.

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Does Google’s shutting down Google Reader bear reflection upon the ten things that Google knows to be true?

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Shutting down Google Reader disconnects people, prevents them from sharing, and changes the game on several levels for many stakeholders. But is that evil?

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What is evil?

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Wikipedia doesn’t give an illuminating definition of evil.

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Myself, I have always considered evil as the deprivation of the dignity of a thing – especially a deprivation of the dignity of the human person. Life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, for example, are universally considered basic to the design and identity of a human being. That which threatens deprivation (or actually deprives us) of our good exercise of this existential property by intention, therefore, is unmistakably evil.

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Murder, theft, lies, supernormal taxes, unjust laws, unbounded ambition, and adultery are conspicuous and patent examples of evil – recognized alike by the ancient shepherd and modern cosmopolitan. Most of us (myself included) participate in evil to some degree – more often than we may want to admit to ourselves. It is unfortunate…

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But as much as is at stake in Google’s shut down of Google Reader – the deprivation of a free service (once provided at Google’s expense) does not appear to be evil. Even if the deprivation causes harm.

Untimely cancellation of a free service or feature is, in fact, the territory and culture of the proverbial free lunch.

The shut down may encourage us, however, to reflect on Google’s motives and brand.

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Googles’ decision, for example, seems to contradict other Google truths. Are these paradoxes a symptom of incompetent management (Kitchen Nightmare) or a conspiracy of brand?

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Focus on the user and all else will follow.

There’s always more information out there.

Great just isn’t good enough.

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Ultimately, if the moral arc of Google’s character is profoundly problematic, perhaps we should consider the alternatives and disempower the capricious, authoritarian throne that Google seems to pursue.

The more important lessons, nonetheless, are clear:

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Users of freeware, beware.

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Don’t build your dream, business, mission-critical process, product or service on freeware.

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If you’re not paying for it, it’s not a tangible asset. At best, it’s a hack (cheat).

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Stan Faryna
14 March 2013
Fairfax, Virginia

Mr. Jones and Me, we’re gonna be big stars

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by Stan Faryna

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Counting Crows, Mr. Jones

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I have struggled to find and share beauty through this blog. And I have failed. Often and persistently. A hundred or so failures for each paltry success. On the other hand, the traffic is fine – I remember when I also bemoaned having less than 10,000 readers in a month.

This is not a tragedy.

This is a joke. [grin]

But I am not joking! My effort and lack of success is the joke. Blogging is a comedy – sooner or later.

Laugh with me.

This is a ridiculous adventure. Absurd. Don Quixote is less foolhardy and he is lesser the fool. But I can not help myself. Perhaps, you find yourself in a similar predicament – unable to stop some foolishness or other. And if, perchance, you did or do…

Smile with me.

My failure as a blogger reminds me also of my failure as a novelist.

Laugh with me. Please.

My conceits are as boundless as my ambitions. And, perhaps, yours too. If so, laughter shall be our greatest solace.

Which brings me to Milan Kundera – a handsome man in a brutal manner. His face is fit for a Federal period scultpture.

The Czech author of The Unbearable Lightness of Being, Milan Kundera, explains in his The Art of the Novel, that what defines a novel most of all is that it asks important, eternal and urgent questions.

Kundera recommends Don Quixote, a 17th (?) Century novel, written by Miguel de Cervantes. What I remember of the story, it asks, do I belong in a world in which virtues are irrelevant?

My unfinished novel passionately rejects Cervantes’ question. If we are here, then we belong here . Obviously, here is inescapable.

Even at the end of the world! Even in the midst of outrageous fortune, death, desperation, pain, fear and disappointment.

Or hell.

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If you’re in hell, keep going.

Winston Churchill said that. Right?

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If Mr. Churchill is right, how exactly do we keep going?

The enquiry does not recommend finis humanevitae. Instead, it leads me to further questions. …

They are not original questions, however. But they may resonate in the human heart. And I must admit that it’s very possible that no answer shall fully satisfy our curiosity, desperation and hope.

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Who am I?

What can I hope for?

What must I do (not knowing – with any certainty – who I am and what I can hope for)?

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Perhaps, writing them for you here – makes you want to click away. But if you ever sat or lay upon the ground with salty tears streaming down your face – don’t go yet.

Because I approach these timeless questions as they present themselves through opportunities and defeats on unwitting adventures of self discovery and our clumsy exploration of the world, others and the sacred. I search for these opportunities and defeats within the context of the human drama with all the passion, confusion, sound and fury of our experience as persons.

So, yes, there are explosions, the crack of an axe on exploding concrete, sex, love, hate, and everything else.

But I remain afraid to finish the work. I postpone yet another failure to connect, share, contribute to a community of servant hearts, and, ultimately, collaborate with others – to make this a better world and a world of we.

I remain afraid to fail yet again. As if I could pick and choose my failures!

Obviously, we do not.

I’m also reminded of some lines from a song by the Counting Crows, Mr. Jones.

Believe in me.
Help me believe in anything.
Cause I want to be someone who believes [that we can make a better world]

Yeah!

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Yeah – keep going.

Stan Faryna
12 March 2013
Fairfax, Virginia

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Other Social Media DOHs

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When your best is suck

Insane Loyalty and other social media DOHs…

Cowardice will speak loudly 

Social Shopping, Open Sky and other social media DOHs

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by Stan Faryna

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Mumford and Sons, I will wait

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Social Shopping

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Social shopping is all bout building and supporting online communities around amazing products and services. As a business strategy, it can provide multiple competitive advantages for business owners. The model can also provide significant value to customers via recommendations, reviews and rewards – not to mention that a common shopping experience provides subject for social interaction and conversation.

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Social shopping is win-win – if done right.

When your best is suck. And other social media DOHs

When your best is suck

And other social media DOHs

by Stan Faryna

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Among the many splendid things to be received from the blogosphere and elsewhere is… beauty.

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Yes, beauty. It glitters greater than gold. It shines brighter than diamonds. And no amount of cash can make a slave of it.

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Recently, Anthony Wilson, one of the bloggers I follow with much enthusiasm, shared a poem by Galway Kinnell. The title is Saint Francis and the Sow.

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Wilson also writes wonderful things. He shares beauty with us. Writing about the goodness of sharing poetry, the blogging poet bemoans the lack of poetry shared.

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My hunch is that the social contract we forge with each other when sharing poems, whether in person, or on email, or on blogs, is vastly underrated as a mechanism for cultural transformation

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Like most complaints, it is a gentle call to action. It is one that spoke to my heart. Thank you, Anthony.

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And reading Kinnell’s poem that Wilson has so generously shared on his blog, I wanted to share it with you. But for reasons different than Wilson’s reason.

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I want to share Kinnell’s Saint Francis and the Sow with you because when our best is suck, when our ambitions, broken promises and failures are a mountain of dirt, we are the sow. As pigs, of course, we may not be deserving of pearls. Just as Christ himself has said. Matthew 7:6

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But as Kinnell’s poem reminds us, even a sow wants, receives and is uplifted by blessings. Beyond it’s intelligence and comprehension. More importantly, beyond all its apparent ugly.

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And I was uplifted and blessed. It is my hope that you shall also be uplifted and blessed by this poem below.

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Stan Faryna
05 February 2013
Fairfax, Virginia

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Saint Francis and the Sow

Galway Kinnell, Selected Poems (Bloodaxe, 2001)

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The bud

stands for all things,

even for those things that don’t flower,

for everything flowers, from within, of self-blessing;

though sometimes it is necessary

to reteach a thing its loveliness,

to put a hand on its brow

of the flower

and retell it in words and in touch

it is lovely

until it flowers again from within, of self-blessing;

as Saint Francis

put his hand on the creased forehead

of the sow, and told her in words and in touch

blessings of earth on the sow, and the sow

began remembering all down her thick length,

from the earthen snout all the way

through the fodder and slops to the spiritual curl of the tail,

from the hard spininess spiked out from the spine

down through the great broken heart

to the sheer blue milken dreaminess spurting and shuddering

from the fourteen teats into the fourteen mouths sucking and

blowing beneath them:

the long, perfect loveliness of sow.

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