Separating a blog from a book

Well, I heard from my publisher yesterday. Nice guy. The title of the blog and book are similar, but the blog is purely a personal project. Both are real, both have their own realities. Clear?

Reality is a many layer thing. I think I can be most helpful to you – and to myself – by being real. Some realities are easier to get a grip on, and I’ll try. We are dealing with flashbacks, in some way or other, you will agree.

The many layers of consciousness and memory is an important realization. This morning I sat down for a few minutes with my Bible before I left the house. It was bookmarked for Acts, the passage on Ephesus. I was both here and there before I knew it. I remember especially a stop after we left the ship. It was at a one room hut. Legend has it that the Virgin Mary lived there for the last years of her life. To the north, on a hill, was a crusaders’ castle. Some where below us was the shore line at the time of Paul; the sea was now several miles away. Another factor was the tour guide looking at his watch and hoping to round us up so he could get us to our destination of Ephesus. Here and now means a lot of things to any and all: where’s the rest room? Important footnote to any co-traveler: your spouse is going to recall it a little differently (or the non com next to you before the truck was hit).

What is reality to us – biology – aside? The Jews in the group could have cared less about the old hut, even as some Christians on the tour tried to wander in and away from the bus. An amateur historian – I plead guilty here – kept wishing he could go look at the castle. The tour guide kept shuffling his feet and looking at the driver. Suddenly, I was back in awareness of needing to get out a blog and to be somewhere else on time.

We are so aware of time and place, yet can instantaneously leave it, leave it anxiously and intensely if it is a flashback. Memory slides between shadings and intrusions, back and forth. What is controllable and what is not – as yet - is much the focus of our questioning of ourselves. If you will forgive me for being crude, a flashback is very much like having to find a rest room.

As my favorite philosopher, Alfred North Whitehead, might remark, “It’s not whether a proposition is true or not, what counts is that it's interesting!”