From Pope to Soap (and paramecium)

The Internet Monk once used this moniker: "Read.Think.React.Write.Live."

Lewis Carroll (1832-1898) gave us this ditty called "The Mad Gardener's Song." This is how it goes:

He thought he saw an Elephant
That practised on a fife:
He looked again, and found it was
A letter from his wife.
'At length I realize,' he said,
'The bitterness of Life!'

He thought he saw a Buffalo
Upon the chimney-piece:
He looked again, and found it was
His Sister'ss Husband's Niece.
'Unless you leave this house,' he said,
'I'll send for the Police!'

He thought he saw a Rattlesnake
That questioned him in Greek:
He looked again, and found it as
The Middle of Next Week.
'The one thing I regret,' he said,
'Is that it cannot speak!'

He thought he saw a Banker's Clerk
Descending from the 'bus:
He looked again, and found it was
A Hippopotamus.
'If this should stay to dine,' he said,
'There won't be much for us!'

He thought he saw a Kangaroo
That worked a coffee-mill:
He looked again, and found it was
A Vegetable-Pill.
'Were I to swallow this,' he said,
'I should be very ill!'

He thought he saw a Coach-and-Four
That stood beside his bed:
He looked again, and found it was
A Bear without a Head.
'Poor thing,' he said, 'poor silly thing!
It's waiting to be fed!'

He thought he saw an Albatross
That fluttered round the lamp:
He looked again, and found it was
A Penny-Postage-Stamp.
'You'd best be getting home,' he said,
'The nights are very damp!'

He thought he saw a Garden-Door
That opened with a key:
He looked again, and found it was
A Double Rule of Three:
'And all its mystery,' he said,
'Is clear as day to me!'

He thought he saw an Argument
That proved he was the Pope:
He looked again, and found it was
A Bar of Mottled Soap.
'A fact so dread,' he faintly said,
'Extinguishes all hope!'


Someone said that one way to deal with Postmodernism is to go back one step to Modernism. Here is Carroll's abode. Here we are able to see through his looking glass that we see ahead into our time, a time when people have ceased to think. What does one see? What does one they think he sees?

Most importantly, will one look again? This is thought, looking again.
I believe Socrates would have defined truth as "speaking what is."

Ours is a time when advertising replaces religion--the models for life and identity are found in 15-30 second technologically charged sermons; we are to "sell" out to "buy" someone else's ideas in order for us to reinvent ourselves.

I am challenged daily to stop and think, to look again at truth. Not to question it, but to wrap my thoughts around it. I once erred by living in the moment and rationalizing truth into relativity. What happens if once ceases to think but that he is made relative. One become not much more than mottled soap.

You know that lump of soap, that one that somehow remains incessantly soggy, that sticks to the dish and defies removal. That squishy, slimy, silky sliver--good for nothing, broken, formless, cousin of lard.


A Lost Boy once asked Peter Pan, "what's a paramecium?"
Peter replied, "A paramecium is a brainless, one-celled critter that can't fly."

Mottled soap and paramecium have much in common.

It's hard to be the Pope if you are the soap.