Mea Culpa

When confronting the darkness witnin my own heart,

it feels to me as a melting of inner spirit, or an

empty, aching hole that cries for love.

Love came and went

in my life. It will come again.

 

"Man in the Moon"

"Where on Earth is the Earth?

Biocentrism.

It's a word I recently heard to describe the pantheistic

world view that is taking hold of America in a big way.

Whales are more respected than unborn children.

Tuna cans boast that no dolphins were hurt to provide you with that

can of tasty fish. But what about the tuna?

Environmentalists gripe about the depletion of the rain forests and

over harvesting of the world's woods.

But they never tackle the issue that every household in the
country does when their mailboxes

are stuffed with trash (paper) each

and every day.

What if the fetuses of seals were being harvested

for scientific research? Would not PETA be alarmed?

But human fetuses seem to be less, "sacred" than animals.

Let those that are concerned with the planet

become realistic and less hypocritical.

Why not end the greed?

The lust for more, "stuff."

What do you think?

 

 

Photo by J. Peter Hansen

 

 



"THE TIME DRAWS NEAR"

In these post Vatican II days I would hope that the Catholic Church would rise up to condemn the horrors as seen in today's world and not make the mistakes she made in World War II. Although Pope Pius XII had his hands tied behind his back and valiantly saved thousands of Jews world wide by hiding them in Churches, Monasteries, Convents and private homes, he and ALL THE WORLD stood by, and knowing in their hearts and minds the hellish terrors being unleashed upon millions, they quietly continued their mindless daily routines. Some, like The Pope (covertly), Saint Maximilian Kolbe, Edith Stein, Oscar Schindler, and later Simon Wiesenthal and many others did what they could. Others slunk back into the shadows saying to themselves, "I know what is happening. There is nothing I can do about it. I will keep safe and shut my mouth."

Look around you. Do you see it? Do you smell strange and acrid chemical fumes in the foyer of your apartment building or see people at 4AM racing down the highway as if they were escaping from (or were) Satan himself?

There are two warnings that I want to leave you with. "Just because I'm paranoid, it doesn't mean there's no one following me." And a quote from the ancient, Chinese sage, Lau Tzu, "When trying to take on the tools of the master carpenter, one will usually cut off ones hand instead."

http://youtu.be/qoHMm5vctIM

"The Crooked Paths Made Plain"

I have a friend who is a linguist. He told me that the word, "Crisis" is made from two other words. Danger and opportunity.

When facing a crisis like the recent, "Hurricane Sandy," the danger of physical harm was obvious. Yet in situations like that there is also the danger of, "Loosing one's cool" or letting one's self be ruled by selfish motives. A healthy self centeredness is useful as a tool toward self preservation, which is one of the most basic of human drives, but when one is tempted to curse out a fellow driver for cutting in on a line for rationed gasoline, or worse yet pulls a gun on him, which was reported in the news in the midst of the storm, one's soul is damaged, which is immanently worse that any physical harm.

The "opportunity" is to get in touch with ones heroic and charitable side at times like that. I'm sure that others saw people performing acts of kindness, empathy and compassion as
I did. People were going to visit the elderly and ask if they needed anything at the supermarket, etc. There were those that took a gas can to the filling station for a friend.

At times like these one sees the best and the worse in mankind.
It has always been that way.

There is a song that was recorded by Arlo Guthrie called, "Which Side Are You On?" I have always loved that song, because it reminds me that there is a straight and narrow road and a crooked and wide road and we must choose which one will become our life's path. The one that most are traveling on, or the road less travelled. Choose wisely.

"Breaking the Silence" / Hansen-Grasso

"BREAKING THE SILENCE" / Hansen-Grasso

Having experienced my own bouts with what Carl Jung called, "Soul Sickness," I have

many friends and aquaintances from the Psychiatric community

and am quite concerned and full of compassion for these poor individuals

that suffer so intensely. My heart and my prayers are always with them.

I wrote this song when recovering from a deep depression back in 2007.

The music was composed, arranged and performed by J. Peter Hansen and the

lyrics, melody and vocal by myself.

It is a dark, yet powerful song about one of society's most profound

and practically un-solvable medical problems.

THE UNIVERSE IS A ROUGH NEIGHBORHOOD!

   Would you hop on a plane, go down to Brazil and go off wandering in the rain forests looking for intelligent life? I mean, if you had absolutely no idea what was in those dark jungles and NO ONE did! Unless by a very rare chance you stumble upon some expedition of botanists or anthropology students, my best bet would be that you would be eaten by cannibals or stung by some exotic insect or come into contact with a deadly and poisonous frog. Perhaps you'll be ripped to shreds by a panther? Or bitten to death by fire ants while you're sleeping. Fungal diseases anyone?
   Then why is it, I wonder, that most scientists seem so sure that any day now, as we probe deeper and deeper into the vast and completely unknown universe, they will contact some incredibly wonderful, benign and loving extraterrestrials that will give them the secret of the ages and lead the human race on to it's next level of evolution. Carl Sagan's "Encyclopedia Galactic" comes to mind.
   No my friends; even much of our own planet remains to be explored, and believe me, allot of the life on this "Good Earth" are such horrible and predatory monsters that they would send you jumping out of bed if you so much as beheld them for a brief moment while dreaming during an afternoon's nap. Most of the ocean depths have yet to be explored. In thousands of years, mankind has only scratched the surface of that watery abyss. And expeditions into the deep jungles are still coming across animal species that are as yet be catalogued and studied. There are also peoples being discovered to this day that have had no contact with modern man and live in such a primitive state that they might make one cringe in fear. Some might like to make you dinner. I mean literally.
   So the next time you're watching some fool on TV, claiming to be a, "so called" expert and spouting the great and exciting "first contact" that awaits him, just be thankful that it is he who is reaching out to whatever the hell is out there and not you. I think Rod Serling got it right when he wrote about the extraterrestrial beings who came "To Serve Man."


    

                                       "It's a cookbook!" "My God... it's a cookbook!"


  A bioluminescent Angler fish in the deepest parts of the ocean where there's ABSOLUTELY no light. I mean none! 

TWO WINGS

                                                                                          

THE EXISTENCE OF GOD CAN NEVER BE PROVEN BY SCIENCE BUT THERE ARE CLEAR IMPLICATIONS IN MODERN PHYSICS TO THIS EFFECT. IN ADDITION,THE REALITY OF A SUPER CONSCIOUSNESS BEYOND THE HUMAN...  CAN BE PROVEN BY PHILOSOPHICAL ASCENT. PHILOSOPHERS HAVE ALSO CONCLUDED THAT THERE CAN BE ONLY ONE. A BELIEF IN A "MAGICAL GOD," OR AN ADHERENCE TO FAITH ALONE LEADS TO FANATICISM AND INSANITY, WHEREAS REASON WITHOUT FAITH LEADS TO A PURELY MATERIALISTIC VIEW OF REALITY, DEVOID OF ETHICAL OR MORAL CONSTRAINT. A FRIEND OF MINE ONCE SAID THAT THE BELIEF IN GOD CAN NEVER BE COMPLETELY LOGICAL. IT IS, HOWEVER, EMINENTLY REASONABLE. FAITH AND REASON. TRUTH NEEDS BOTH OF THESE WINGS TO FLY.   Tom Nicholas Grasso


 

FRACTAL EXPRESSIONISM AS ART THERAPY

     Fractal Expressionist Art is just one of the many legacies of Benoit Mandelbrot (1924-2010) and his discovery of Fractal Geometry in the late 1970's. His work on "self-similarity" and the intrinsic order that can be found in what was once considered to be nothing but chaos have been applied to everything from CGI movie effects, to innovative and non-invasive "micro-modeling" techniques used today by cardiologists and oncologists to model microscopic details within the human body.
   The creation of Fractal Art, which requires almost no particular artistic skill or ability and is a completely intuitive activity of mind and eye can also be utilized as a therapy for those afflicted with certain mental illnesses or developmental disabilities just as music, art and dance have been for decades. "Fractal Generators" can be found on the web free of charge and a patient could be "painting" images almost immediately after downloading one to a hard drive. I know from my own experience that the relaxation, sudden increase of self esteem and downright fun can be an invaluable distraction from many symptoms of clinical depression, some of which I myself have struggled with
in my own life.

                        Here are a few examples of my work.

TO LEARN MORE ABOUT FRACTAL ART:  http://www.fractovia.org/

     

STOP AND WAIT FOR THE LIGHT

   On this, the tenth anniversary of the September eleventh attacks on our country we might pause to reflect on the dark, diabolistic forces that have inhabited this world almost since it's creation and the light that can obliterate it.
   When Our Lord said, "I am the light of the world" I feel He was telling us that only when we confront evil with the light of his teachings can we overcome it. He also said, "Without me, you can do nothing." Certainly we can make no lasting impression on the world without Him and defeat would be inevitable. We can't face the dark forces of the world alone. But we can ask the creator Himself to stand between us and the depravity that exists all around us as a shield and a kind of, "protective bubble." Then we can get on with life and try to do some good, serving Him with great humility.

   This darkness also exists within us and as as we try to cling to the good and reject evil, we gradually shine light into our own souls. Light always dispels darkness, never the other way around, so we can be sure that if we trust in Him to illuminate our inner being we will be able to see clearly the things that need to be rooted out and replaced with His presence.

   On 9/11 we Americans, and the entire Western world, were shaken awake and forced to face an evil that was there all along. It seemed to be highlighted all around us in those days of crisis. Buildings were coming down, anthrax was in people's mailboxes and we all had the uneasy feeling that anything could happen now. Ours was a country reeling from a series of punches by an enemy we were hardly aware of. We got back on our feet, brushed off the dust, and over the past ten years the fight has continued.

   Remembering the dead, the building of memorials and the increase of security are all well and good but must not be done simply as a matter of course. Vigilance must be maintained. We must always remain alert. Memorials and Museums will not protect us. History can not protect us. Only the light can protect us from within and from without and we must mount a constant search for that evil, which if ignored, could rise up in an instant again to destroy us. Anthony Hopkins in the film, "The Rite" says, "Not believing in the devil won't save you from him."

   You might feel that you're safety is assured by stopping at a stop sign. But the important action is not in the stopping. It is the looking both ways for traffic that could save your life.

ALPHA & OMEGA (by Father Robert McGuire, S.J.)

   Never, never in the history of civilizations has any nation been made the reluctant and, agonizingly so, custodian of the world. Since the Spanish American war, the First World War, the Second World War, the Korean War, the Vietnam War and now the Terrorist war we have lost over 400,000 of our young men and women. Their sacrifice can be seen in the pensive yet awesome array of stones of remembrances in France, Italy, Sicily, England, Africa, Guadalcanal, the Philippines, Iwo Jima, Pearl Harbor and Arlington. Yet we have not claimed any land from these sacrifices. What an amazing country!

   What makes us great, yet so tragically human? It is that we are a nation under God with liberty and justice for all... and that God is Jesus Christ.

   We have been and hopefully will continue to be a nation by the people, for the people and of the people. Our forefathers defined it. Let us hope that we can maintain that identity.

   And to quote Father John Hardon, S.J. -

   "Unless we recover the zeal and the spirit of the first Century Christians-- unless we are willing to do what they did and to pay the price that they paid, the future of our country, the days of America are numbered."

CINEMA FOR PHILOSOPHERS, THEOLOGIANS, PSYCHOLOGISTS AND ARTISTS

   Not since Stanley Kubrick's, 2001: a space odyssey, has a film said so much by saying so little.  

   The latest work of philosophy professor turned film maker, Terrence Malick, opened this month to very mixed reactions. Stunning cinematography and gorgeous music punctuate "The Tree of Life," but like Kubrick's 2001, all the dialogue could probably fit on one page... and yet, as Kubrick's vision was of a cold and technological world, Malick envisions a world full of love, beauty and hope.
   After seeing it twice I only wish I had seen it with the students of the London School of Theology at their private advance screening. I'm sure it would have been followed by intelligent and vivacious banter. The close of both showings I attended were punctuated by thunderous applause and an equal amount of booing and cat calls. The audience mingled in the lobby afterward discussing the movie, which is something I've never seen before. Some loved it. Some hated it. No one was neutral. A few walked out a half hour into the film while others (myself included) sat on the edge of their seats, enthralled, for the entire 2 hours and 20 minutes.
   If your idea of a night at the movies includes guns, sex, blood,  adultery or fast cars, stay away! But if you want to contemplate your very existence, or ponder, like one of the characters in the film, "God... where are you?" then you may well love The Tree of Life.

      As far as story line, the plot is fractal and impressionistic, with cracks, breaks and vast expanses of time and space, interwoven with the microcosm of a small family, of no real import, living in Waco Texas. If I was to sum it up, all I could say was, "It's about the smallness of single individuals compared to the vastness of eternity and their eventual merger."

   Steve Parker, a student at the London School of Theology said, "The Tree of Life is not an easy film to watch, we're not sure what's real and what's imagined sometimes... Is it going to be a moneymaker? I doubt it, but I'm glad it was made... It's fuel for the soul. If you want entertainment, go and see something else. If you'd like to explore, wonder, marvel, feel, question, and think, it's the film for you."

  
Official movie website;  http://www.twowaysthroughlife.com
  

THE CURIOUS CASE OF MY MISSING IDENTITY

   How do we find ourselves? Do we ever pose the question,

"Who am I?" And who are we asking anyway?

   When I attended school this seemed to be the prevailing question that all the great thinkers were asking and now that I have been away from those institutions of learning for many years, I feel that I should know the answer. But I'm no closer now than I was then.

   In a way, I think I'm still being born. Still struggling to break out of the shell. Still yearning to be fully human... fully alive. Like Benjamin Button, it's as though I began my life as an old man and am moving backward inevitably toward my birth.

   Perhaps my true Birthday will be the day that I draw my final breath. I always found it interesting that the Feast Days of Catholic Saints are not celebrated on the day they were born, but on the day they died. It was then that they threw off the shell of this world,
to be born anew into the eternal one.

   To find oneself is to find heaven, which was within us all along.
And to find heaven is to find the One that can
truly answer the question, "Who am I?"

   "You are my child.
Come to me. I have been waiting for you."