Monday
Miscellaneous Rambling
More Obamacare troubles. Marie got us registered for Obamacare again this year. Unbelievably difficult and the system is riddled with incompetence. I've actually concluded that the people who put this monstrosity into place are evil, no exaggeration. How a person could in good faith propose something so nasty and burdensome on another person, then seek moral shelter under "the common good," is beyond me. * * * * * * * Last week I asked whether there were any Zen Chesterton books out there. I couldn't find any, but last weekend I saw John C.H. Wu referred to as the "Chinese Chesterton." Wu was a Chinese convert to Catholicism and author of the well-known Golden Age of Zen. That's close enough for me. I've started reading that book again. * * * * * * * I searched for "Zen" Twitter accounts. The first one I clicked on, Daily Zen, by coincidence had a GKC quote as its most recent tweet. I'm taking that as a good omen. * * * * * * * I go on "Zen kicks," where I'm almost like Jack Kerouac, who once vowed to read nothing except Buddhist texts and to limit his sexual activity to onanism. I don't think he kept either vow and my Zen kicks often don't last long, but when they hit me, I jump in with both feet. This time, I pulled Wu's book up on my Kindle, started reading Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance
, and started re-reading parts of Merton's classic Mystics & Zen Masters
. * * * * * * * I have no idea how long this kick will last, but I've undergone periodic Zen bouts since I was 21, when I was first exposed to far-eastern thought. Zen is a neat system of thought, or no-thought, as it were, and its paradoxes and playful absurdities amuse me. Expect some Zen material here at TDE. * * * * * * * By the way, with respect to the Kerouac reference above, please rest assured I'm turning neither Buddhist nor onanistic. I don't want to get any rumors swirling around the Catholic cybersphere. Next thing you know, we'll have well-intended bloggers defending Scheske's onanistic exceptionalism.
