dignity | The Direction of Intention

The Fog [David’s blog on Flawed Wednesday]

Posted on May 21, 2025 by davidrobinsoncreative

“The only thing worse than being blind is having sight but no vision.” ~ Helen Keller

A mile to the west it is 75 degrees and sunny. Here, by the lake, it is foggy and 10 degrees cooler. The inland heat meets the cool lake water and produces a layer of thick fog. Standing on our front porch we cannot see the end of the street.

It is quiet in our pocket of fog. Today I welcome the protective solitude it inspires. It provides a magical respite from the happenings of the world. Fog brings permission to unplug, some breathing space from the news of the day. Sitting on the back deck I imagine that we are on the shores of Avalon, disappearing into the mist, becoming invisible to the rest of the troubled, enraged world.

In the Arthurian legend, Avalon is a magical, mystical place. It is symbolic as a place of virtue.

Virtue requires vision. Choose any adjective that describes virtue – goodness, morality, integrity, dignity, honor… – all serve a clear ideal. A vision. A vision based on the capacity to discern between right and wrong, truth and lie, service and exploitation. A vision that follows a steadfast moral compass.

By this or any standard, our current leadership has sight but no vision. The milksop Republicans in Congress play cowboy while sacrificing themselves on an alter of greed. How else do we make sense of their dedicated impotence in the face of the worst constitutional crisis in our nation’s history? It’s a crisis that they could stop in a day if they honored their oath to the Constitution. If they did their jobs. The Republican president sells the national soul to the highest bidder, personal profit the glutton-master he and his peers serve. A fall from grace, our isle of vice is not disappearing into a fog of uncertainty, rather it reveals itself in the harsh light of moral indifference, it adorns itself in a festival blanket of foxy-lies producing angry maga-followers awash in a cultish brain fog. Sight without vision.

There is nothing mystical going on here. The unprincipled disavowal of ethics, the blatant bribery and unbridled greed, the hard right turn away from truth and democratic ideals – all happening in plain sight – renders us worse than blind.

Is it any wonder I welcome the fog and imagine myself disappearing into the quiet of the mystical island, a sanctuary symbolic of virtue?

read Kerri’s blogpost about FOG

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Filed under: Flawed Wednesday, Metaphor, Perspective | Tagged: artistry, avalon, Congress, corruption, cowardice, david robinson, davidrobinsoncreative.com, democracy, dignity, goodness, greed, Helen Keller, integrity, Kerri Sherwood, kerri sherwood itunes, kerrianddavid.com, kerrisherwood.com, morality, story, studio melange, the melange, uncertainty, virtue | 1 Comment »

Incite Some Deviance [David’s blog on Merely A Thought Monday]

Posted on December 18, 2023 by davidrobinsoncreative

I searched for it but couldn’t find it. A short clip of Carl Sagan placing life on our tiny planet into the perspective of the enormity of the universe. A little sun in a galaxy of suns in a universe of billions and billions of galaxies. Through this lens, it is mind-boggling, the hubris necessary to believe we are the center of it all.

Initially this morning, I wrote a post about grace but cut it. I asked a question about the collision of values: loyalty-to-a-group smacking down telling-the-truth. It’s a uniquely human dilemma. The insistence upon tribe, Us-and-Them, spins some very dark necessities. I tossed it because grace was overshadowed by gloomy.

This is what I intended to write: on this tiny blue ball there is a group of Us defined as “All Humans”. Loyalty to this group is understood as idealistic. How can we possibly reach across so many imagined boundaries? What would we do with a definition of Us that was all inclusive? We would invite grace. Float all boats.

Each year, everywhere I wander, I am steeped in songs-of-the-season that appeal to the best of our nature. Peace on earth. Goodwill. Love one another. Perhaps we should listen to the lyrics of these songs. They are written by us for us as an appeal to our idealism, a sentiment central during this season of light’s return. Peace. Peace. Peace. We should “take it to heart.”

Let’s face it, loving one another is deviant if it is all inclusive.

It’s a reach, I know, but it’s really not so hard to imagine Us in the context of this vast universe, on this tiny ball spinning and spinning around our minuscule sun, one of billions and billions and billions. In such a context, the boundaries-in-our-minds dissolve and invite a different set of questions to arise: How can we better share this blue dot together? Conflict makes money yet collaboration creates possibility.

Pouring a little light into so much dedicated tribalism is deviant. It requires a touch of dignity. Pouring light into darkness is called Grace. Grace, in the face of so much division, is deviant.

When I cut my initial post I wondered what it would take to breach the code of tribe, reach beyond the singing platitudes, and incite some deviant behavior like peace-on-earth and all-inclusive love-of-one-another.

read Kerri’s blogpost about DEVIANT BEHAVIOR

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Filed under: Awakening, Gratitude, Merely A Thought Monday, Metaphor, Transcendence | Tagged: artistry, blue ball, Blue Marble, Carl Sagan, cassidy hutchinson, christmas, collaboration, david robinson, davidrobinsoncreative.com, day of ashura, deviance, deviant, dignity, division, galaxy, grace, Hanukkah, hubris, humanity, Idealism, idealist, idealistic, ideals, inclusion, inclusive, Kerri Sherwood, kerri sherwood itunes, kerrianddavid.com, kerrisherwood.com, kwanzaa, love, peace, peace on earth, story, studio melange, the melange, tribalism, tribe, universe, us and them, values | 1 Comment »

Pull It Up [on KS Friday]

Posted on April 19, 2019 by davidrobinsoncreative

amazinggraceonearthintsongbox copy

No single religious tradition has dominion over love. There is no form of worship that can claim ownership of grace. Hope is a human condition, as universal as are dreams and yearning and peace.

How often do we lose the essential in a fight over the form it takes? What kind of ridiculous critter thinks they can claim faith as a territory, love as property? We plant flags on the moon as if it can be owned by a few of us. We plant flags on the floor of the ocean as if it can be possessed. I suppose it should not be a surprise that we plant god flags, too. Love as a limited resource. Only a ridiculous critter would claim division as the path to unity.

It is holy week in the Christian calendar so I looked up grace in the dictionary: courtesy, good will, to honor, to dignify, forgiveness, decorum, civility, elegance, glorify, honor. Thoughtfulness. Consideration. Decency.

Wouldn’t it be amazing if we pulled up our flags and, instead, extended to others those things we profess to claim?