Another Fine Fix Bear's Gotten Herself Into

And you thought the mess I got into for "Talking Points: Three Cheers for White Men" was bad!

For my encore:

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Draco Layer Four: The Anagogic or Mystical Sense

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Here be dragons. And doves. Human beings long for transcendence. Such longing is, for the world, always out of fashion because, of course, it is not a longing for the world, and the world knows it. We know what the world wants. The world—by which we mean Satan, the Lord of the World—wants above all our obedience, a jewel so precious that he will do anything to get it: lie, steal, murder, bear false witness, pretend to social standing, pretend to insider knowledge to get us to consent to his influence.  “God lied to you. You will not die.” And suddenly we are anxious about having other people dislike us, about losing prestige in our social circles, about other people being more popular or influential or successful, about other people having secret knowledge, about our own influence and fame. “You shall be as gods, knowing good and evil.” And with that temptation, our first parents fell. The irony is cosmic. There they were in the Garden, privy to conversation with God face-to-face, ...
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Draco Layer Three: The Moral or Tropological Sense

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Learn to discern. We all know what sin is, right? Right?!  Once upon a time in the desert , the hermit Evagrius Ponticus (d. 399) set out to make a list of the most deadly ones, albeit he called them “deadly thoughts,” not “sins.” You probably know the list, even if you don’t think you do: gluttony, impurity (a.k.a. lust), avarice (a.k.a. greed), sadness (a.k.a. feeling sorry for oneself), anger or wrath, acedia  or sloth, vainglory, and pride (two different things).  Not quite the list you were expecting? That is because some centuries later—we’re talking ancient times here, when centuries passed like decades do now (or vice versa)—Pope Gregory the Great (d. 604) revised the list, somewhat accidentally, in his commentary on Job.  Gregory had been expounding Job according to its multiple layers—yes, that’s right! Job, like Shrek, has layers! —and he happened somewhere in book XXXI to mention the “seven principle vices” to which Pride,  the “Queen of S...
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At all.  As my liberal friends on Facebook have made me abundantly aware these past several weeks every time I have posted even the mildest endorsements of the candidate running against our incumbent.  As my family has made clear as a condition for visiting at Thanksgiving.  Talking politics in and of itself is a hot button issue.  Unless, of course, you simply agree with me. Why should this be?  (I know, it's me being naïve again, but here we go.)  "Don't talk religion or politics except to very intimate friends," or so Lily Haxworth Wallace advised way back in 1941 in her New American Etiquette .  On that count, however, I have no intimates, at least politically.  Or the ones that I do have are all at the National Review .  Plus Barry (hi, Barry!), my oldest friend in the world (albeit three months younger than me), and Prof. Mondo , whom I know only from the blogosphere. And maybe you, if you're reading this now.  (Maybe.)  ...
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Yoga As We Know It

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I knew it, I knew it! I have long been suspicious of the claims that my yoga teachers have made about the great antiquity of the postures that they were teaching us. Okay, so there were sculptures of yogis and Buddhas sitting in Lotus, but where were all the Downward Dogs and Warriors, Headstands and Forward Bends? Why couldn't any of the books show us illustrations or even properly referenced descriptions of these poses in the ancient sources if there were any? Well, as historian Mark Singleton has recently reported in Yoga Journal (November 2010), it's because there aren't.* It gets better (or worse, depending on how important you think antiquity is). Not only aren't these poses--and more or less all of the others which aspiring yogis and yoginis practice so diligently in yoga studios and health clubs the (Westernized) world over--particularly ancient. They aren't even Indian. They are, you guessed it, Western to begin with. To be exact, 19th-century...
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