Mormons... are so strong, they can handle wealth, they are confident. I think it is because they are not bogged down by rules for equality, but have a firmly defined system of relative status and responsible command.
quote by Mary Douglas
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Inside a religious body you get sects and hierarchies, inside an information network you get bazaars and cathedrals, it is the same, call them what you like. They survive by pointing the finger of blame at each other.
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Real equality is immensely difficult to achieve, it needs continual revision and monitoring of distributions. And it does not provide buffers between members, so they are continually colliding or frustrating each other.
quote by Mary Douglas
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Religion can make it worse. Are you supposing that if people were encouraged to believe in a transcendent reality, and to be encouraged by grand rituals and music and preaching, to love their neighbors, then they would put jealousy and frustration aside?
quote by Mary Douglas
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Beauty Asks for a Rose
to the Saviour of all saviours
only bring me the Rose of all roses
clouded pink in winter's storms
the Artic rose no one can comprehend
or reconfigure
the high serene silver
rose confounding moonlight
recovered by kings in flight
from their lost kingdoms
the one that is mirrored in
the starry triptich
whenever I close my eyes
only bring me the cardinal Rose, the rose of
hidden music, scrolled and scrolled the
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poem by Mary Douglas
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Song is a Ladder of Diamonds
song is a ladder of diamonds
flung into space
we try to reach You on
every rung
and fail
song is a web of stars
we get lost in
a mist a drizzle of
music half-forgotten
when the prompting angels
fade from view
song is a difficult road
in a drenching rain on the way to work
and being on foot
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poem by Mary Douglas
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I Lost the Colors of Giotto
I LOST THE COLORS OF GIOTTO
I lost the colors of Giotto:
the steady pouring of
earnest angels; the
forerunning fuchsia
of generations of light
and fountaining ardor.
I lost the sorrowless
carmine quiet, the
rectitude of stars lapped
in lapis lazuli
the indigo stairwell of clouds.
I lost the olive branching, the
sweet cerulean days; the small
birds gathered in the lemon wind;
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poem by Mary Douglas
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Lives of the Hunger Artists
'This is my letter to the world'
-Emily Dickinson
'O Jerusalem, stoning the prophets,
how often I would have gathered...'
Jesus Christ
'This living hand, warm and capable'
-John Keats
I am sending you this last letter:
written on snow
by moonlight.
you do not answer
when I ask:
you do not
honor what I honor.
you leave thorns
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poem by Mary Douglas
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Any Heart Breaking Over the World Is
ANY HEART BREAKING OVER THE WORLD IS
to the once and shining, Russia-
to Vladimir Ashkenazy's beautiful interpretation of Prokofiev's Cinderella...
any heart breaking over the world is
breaking off in mid-sentence
still, I believe in words:
in music tuned from words
in words inlaid in music
emerging with farthest meanings;
reduced to no one's ashes.
don't chronicle what no one
can endure, we'll be our own
country - after all - and
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poem by Mary Douglas
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