Skimming the Surface

     First, thanks to all our veterans for their service!

                          
Professor J,

"Have I involved you in double postage by this loquacity?"  We are fortunate that T.C's question to Emerson is one we needn't ask! (I did warn you that you may be subjected to numerous quotes until I finish this book, didn't I?) You'll find a few more quotes at the end of this post. Lewis says that friends rarely talk about friendship the way lovers talk about love, but these two actually spent a good bit of time discussing how much the relationship meant to them. Unusual for men, especially by today's standards. Their poignant words and tender inquiries after one another's welfare (between economics, religion, politics) are nothing short of enchanting to me.

I share your reluctance to get blogged down (lol) in theological weeds and for all the reasons you so thoroughly laid out. I have no desire to spend large amounts of time and energy twisting ourselves in knots over things that others have spent lifetimes trying to untangle. We can however skim along a spiritual surface if you so desire, seeking common ground.  Sound a little less like "poison"? ;) Not to worry, I doubt any discussion of ours will ever take on that character.

E/C side note: At times Emerson did withhold letters from his friend as a sort of epistolary punishment which seems rather petty for such a notable thinker;  occasionally some of their discussions did leave them "frothingly polarized". Surprising, somewhat that two such powerful and ingenious minds could do what John Maxwell warns of and value their opinions over people (though it was only temporary).

Richard Feynman: Once again I must thank you for introducing me to someone whose work I was previously unaware of. I like him and his endlessly mesmerizing thought process, very much. You know, of course, I didn't stop at just the one video. :) I'd be very interested to know who or what influenced his father's thinking. I find it interesting though, that he rejects certain ideas because they are too simple, seemingly discounting the possibility that anything could ever be both simple and true. Do you think it's possible that someone so brilliant who clearly appreciates and maybe even craves complexity could miss a truth based solely on what he sees as its unsophistication?

As for the "natural desires" I referenced I merely meant those universal deep human desires; to be loved and known, to create, to learn and understand, and to have our questions answered in some way. A world of cold rationality offers few answers for the things we often ponder deep in the night when we are alone with ourselves.

You have correctly surmised this housewife's definition of a theological-free-for-all. We'll have to make sure to include it in our dictionary. lol

"Jump parsecs?" Is that even possible sans a certain star-ship? ;) As for a change of subject I recently finished a very interesting book, Cognitive Surplus, about how the internet and our new found connectivity is changing us from a society of consumers to one of creators. This article from Wired Magazine makes interesting comparisons between it and another book I enjoyed, Drive: The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us and gives a brief overview of both. Drive was surprising because we are often wrong about what incentives work and don't work with people. It seems we have all underestimated the intrinsic motivation for doing things. Have you read either of those?

More Emerson/Carlyle:

"You express a desire to know something of myself. Account me 'a drop in the ocean seeking another drop." ~E.

"A friendly thought is the purest gift that man can afford to man." ~ C.

"My Dear Friend, -- I hope you do not measure my love by the tardiness of my messages. I have few pleasures like that of receiving your kind and eloquent letters. I should be most impatient of the long interval between one and another, but that they savor always of Eternity, and promise me a friendship and friendly inspiration not reckoned or ended by days or years. " ~E

And later in the same letter, the first after the death of his brother, Emerson wrote " We want but two or three friends, but these we cannot do without, and they serve us in every thought we think."