3. Bobbies Presentation – 1.16.24
Setting up a 20 minute focus session.
As I reflect this morning, on Bobbies presentation this week, I find that my notes have scattered to the wind, but what remains: a print out of Ezel Ballad of the Landman, and a reflection.
I reflect to that dark room, and the imagery of hard labor comes to my mind. Living in a mountainous place, quite, disconnected from civilization? There aren’t buildings, only the trees.
I think about the deep intelligence that responded to the proposal of the Landman as he pitched an offer. I think about what it means to own land, and I long for the lived experience of my grandfather’s wisdom that dug out basements. I’ve always told people that he could build a house from the ground up, but wasn’t all I saw an basement unfinished? Maybe, but not exactly – their surely was more.
What is the main questions in this play? Should these people sell their land to companies seeking to do fracking in the area? How will they survive if they don’t? What is civilization apart from money lenders and debt?
I think about the remarks from The 11 convention of the southern Christian leadership conference.
What number are we on today in 2025?
I fear the racial tensions that still seem to resonate following the assassination of a man like Martin Luther King, though I consider was there no parity and the death of Kennedy? Yet, how does a man or a society break the universal law: ‘Thou Shall Not Murder’ and expect to avoid the tumult produced thereby?
Again I thought about the cold and how natural gas is used to heat our homes and cook our food. I thought about the Native American who collected Ginsing, and slept in caves facing east for warmth.
I wondered about this whole effort, who has the intelligence and the capacity to effectively engage in such a sweeping industrial effort as Fracking? Are such things good for America, particularly in light of the formation and agitation of the Far East?
I think about Iraq and our relationships to the Middle East, about how deeply underlined these wars were by energy the need for energy, but after perhaps for power?
I consider this thing to be a manifestation of power in American, as the quote from Martin Luther King remains in front of me, “that power without love is reckless and abusive… (Does the land man really love the land its people?) … that love without power is sentimental and anemic.” (Is this land sentimental and anemic, do its people struggle for substance sustenance.)
What is salvation?