A recent decision was overturned because a jury consulted an external source in their deliberations. Granted, that happened to be the Bible -- found in the hotel rooms in which they were sequestered -- and this raises genuine judicial concerns. The ironic, or should I say sad, thing was that after consulting the Bible the jury rendered the death penalty:
In a five-day hearing last month, Harlan's attorneys argued that several jurors consulted biblical scripture during jury deliberations, particularly two Old Testament passages from Leviticus that read, "fracture for fracture, eye for eye, tooth for tooth, as he has caused disfigurement of a man, so shall it be done to him." And, "whoever kills an animal shall restore it, but whoever kills a man shall be put to death." - Reuters.
Faith is not a belief about what can be known, such as the age of the earth, but our stance in the face of the unknowable, such as tragedy and wonder.
I suppose I will be a native New Yorker — or at least a Brooklynite -- when I stop asking myself the question of what it means to live here. It's been a year and a half and I still see things in light of their differences to Cambridge.
Right now I'm sitting in the Fall Cafe reading two books and listening to a pretty Indian woman interview a poet — who must be famous, he says he won a Guggenheim. She's been asking him questions for an hour and he seems to have warmed to the task. In my previous life — see, the retrospective turn — I was flattered by the occasional interview and profile, but also embarrassed by the attention, of my vanity, and usually of the result. She just asked him, "What are some of the common themes in your work?" He then started his musings upon modernity. The best interviewers, like Terry Gross or Krista Tippett, know the work of their subject and would not ask for a common theme, but identify one in juxtaposition to something else, something novel, an opposing theme or current event.
I am reading Feisal Abdul Rauf's book What's Right with Islam. It's an accessible introduction of Islam in the American context. My atheist self is critical of the apologetic rendering of the nice parts of Islam. My spiritual self appreciates the wisdom and insights of those highlights, but I also know that these are not the only threads in this cloth. My pragmatic/political self is glad that the effort is being made to craft a modern non-fundamentalist variant, even if I find it, on balance, to be objectionable and dangerous. (Ibn Warnaq's Why I Am Not a Muslim documents all that is not so rosy.)
Also, yesterday Nora bought me My Evil Twin Sister #5: a collection of letters from Amber Gayle to her sister during her high school year abroad. I'm envious, again, because in my previous life I traveled, learned, and marveled. Now I read. That's what I tell people I do for a living now: I read, and sometimes write, but mostly read, and it's very boring to others — and even to myself — unless you happen to be interested in the history of the reference work, which I often am, but sometimes am not.
An acquaintance told me she was leaving for a five-week trip for an artists' retreat and I kicked myself for not asking her to write. She's a writer, after all; I would've vicariously enjoyed receiving a letter of someone else's journey. I don't receive letters anymore, everyone now uses e-mail, something to which I've come to feel alienated from.
Well, as much as I reflexively think of the past, there's also the silent but pending future. One day I'll have exciting news to tell of again. And I could write an interesting letter, even if no one writes to me.
My bath,
when did it leave
the lake upstate?
If you're into falling buttered toast.
Glorious sunlight. The warm rays bathe my face and kiss my closed eyelids, its gentle breeze lifts the filaments of winter's cobwebs so that I might see again.
The barren and crooked little tree which I pass without thought will soon be full of delicious berries
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