The Lotus Blossom

A Book For A Distracted Generation

Welcome to The Lotus Blossom – Out Of The Muck, a continuing conversation for clarity, consciousness and human dignity in the Information Age. Based on his debut novel, The Lotus Blossom, author D. M. Kenyon invites you to take time away from the bubble and fizz of digital media saturation to browse, read and contemplate the meaning of the human experience in the face of information overload and virtual reality – and when you are finished here, go play outside.
A Prayer In Passing

Author D. M. Kenyon presents his poem The Mantra Of My Love For You as his offering to a close friend battling cancer, another who has recently lost his father and to everyone looking for the courage to face the expiration of life.
Red States, White Flight and Blue Skies: America’s Cultural Divide

TLB takes a look at the 2012 election results, what it means for American culture and the future of the nation. Electoral maps indicate that conservatism and liberalism directly correspond to population density. What does population density have to do with tolerance and opinions regarding economic distribution?
Witch Hunt

In 1692, Susannah Martin, better known to history as “Goodie Martin”, an aged widow, was arrested and ultimately executed for witchcraft. Her crime? She was old an opinionated. Author D. M. Kenyon explores the American pension for mass hysteria that ultimately leads to tragedy and contemplates the plight of his 9th great grandmother, Goodie Martin.
Second Sapien

In Latin, the human beings are referred to homo sapien sapien, or “man that is aware that he is aware”. This “second sapien”, the ability to think abstractly and be aware of our own thoughts is considered by most to be an artifact of evolution, but it is all the source of human malice and delusion. Author D. M. Kenyon contemplates the Second Sapien in his essay of about a robin chick that he tried to rescue in his backyard.
The Accidental Evangelist

Christian Wiman is self-described as a Christian of no religion. Deeply spiritual, fabulously talented, he is a scholar, artist and theologist rolled into one. But what captured our attention at TLB is his ideas on the future of faith. The mere fact that he sees a future to spirituality would be enough to make him remarkable, but his description of how this spirituality is evolving is both inspiring and reassuring. In Christian Wiman’s world, divinity is only natural.
Let Them Eat Cake

There is a revolution brewing among the global population of human beings. People around the world are waking up to the oppression of global business that virtually owns every government in the world. Through social media, the global community of human beings is talking to one another and organizing. The next great revolution that mankind is likely to fight will be fought and won with tweets and posts on Facebook. Invisible Children’s campaign to take down Joseph Kony is just the beginning.
Let My People Go

The Syrian people fight valiantly for freedom while the world watches, but does not come to their aid. The United States is paralyzed by its own military over-extension battle fatigue and recently, a mentally disturbed soldier inflaming the Afghan War by killing innocent civilians. In the power vacuum the Syrian government hunts its own people and places land mines along the route of evacuation. Who will come to their rescue?
The Insuppressible Man

Venture Smith was captured in West Africa and brought to Connecticut as a slave. He grew up to be strong, hard working and never forgot that he was the son of a tribal king. With nearly superhuman work ethic he eventually bought his own freedom and the freedom of not only his family, but numerous other slaves. He died a prominent business man and was carried to his grave by pallbearers of both African and European descent.
The Word

Human beings live in a consciousness built from language. D. M. Kenyon’s short essay The Word explores who language shapes our experience of existence and even physical life itself through the coded tongue of DNA. From mantras to poetry our species literally speaks itself into existence.
The New Penny Dreadful?

Industrialized printing made the low-cost “pulp” publication of newspapers possible. With printing capacity to spare, publishers started producing down-and-dirty fiction that could be sold for a penny or less. Known as “penny dreadfuls”, this form of cheap fiction was popular with younger readers and considered morally corrupt by social critics. The the age of free digital publishing and 99 cent e-book, TLB asks: they’re cheap, but are they still dreadful?
Christian Kindness On The Road To Nirvana

They say that there are many paths to the top of Mount Fuji, but only one summit. D. M. Kenyon shares his story how two remarkable Catholic priests helped him find his religion, his Buddhist religion, and why he is still inspired by these great Christians to this day. In the 1960s, some of the greatest spiritual minds on the planet started collaborating to end war, stand up for social justice and show the world what made them the same, disregarding what made them different.
Mark Twain’s Talk With Satan

In 1916, Mark Twain’s editor, Albert Bigelow Paine, published The Mysterious Stranger six year’s after the author’s death. Now known to be a compilation of at least two earlier versions of a story featuring Satan as a main character, this book is still nothing less than astonishing. In it, Twain takes on traditional American notions of consciousness, especially dualism, with a his typical frank style. Twain’s final soliloquy of Satan challenges the very idea of self in a manner reminiscent of Friedrich Nietzsche and Buddha.
The Myth Of More

As we confront the delusion that economies can expand forever and that happiness is somehow linked to buying stuff, TLB takes a look at the consciousness of accumulation, consumerism and greed. The idea of “more” is actually an existential impossibility and the core delusion that has our society empty the contents of every department store into a landfill in a matter of a few years. Controlling human avarice begins with destroying the Myth Of More.
This Is Your Daughter

It is impossible to ignore the suffering the millions of people in our world who simply want to be free. And yet our digital media stream overflows with images of violence and abuse that can make us numb. Egypt’s Blue-bra girl outraged author D. M. Kenyon. A father of three daughters, Kenyon could not escape seeing the young woman as his own daughter and invites you to consider that she is your daughter too.
Girl Fight

Even in the Information Age, when a man stands up for himself, he is considered courageous, but when a woman does the same she is a “bitch”. We live world of lingering double standards that require our girls to grow and compete with men, but are not necessarily given the training necessary to face confrontation and conflict. TLB takes a look at the central premise of D. M. Kenyon’s novel, The Lotus Blossom, and asks: are our daughter ready for the New World Order?
When Ownership Destroys Art

At what point does a piece of art become so important to the history of the evolution of human consciousness that it must be excluded from private ownership? How long can public museums continue to pay the equivalent of small annual municipal budgets for a piece of important? In the case of Claude Monet’s Agapanthus Triptych, the massive three-panel work has been divided by three different museums meaning that it is rarely view in its entirety as it was intended. This ownership has literally destroyed the art of the work.
Daughter Where Art Thou?

There are a lot of ways you can raise your daughter. You could train her to be a living Barbie Doll™ or you could train her to be a woman of conscience and consequence. D. M. Kenyon explores his relationship with his daughter, Emma, as she leaps from an internship in the United States Senate to foreign study in Scotland at the University of St. Andrews. Neither growing older nor growing up is for sissies in the Kenyon household.
Woman As Thing

Human beings are creatures of accumulation and tend to view objects of their desire as things to be obtained and exploited. This includes basic necessities of life like shelter, territory, food – and women. It has been thousands of years since a cave dweller carved The Venus of Willendorf, but society is still presents the woman as an object in media and in our social thinking. Has the media onslaught of the Information Age made this worse?
True Believer

John Rogers was a highly educated man of conscience. As a principle advocate of an early Protestant Bible translated into English and referred to as the “Mathew Bible”, Master Rogers offended Queen Mary. He was burned at the stake on February 4, 1555 at Smithfield. Noailles, the French ambassador, speaks of the support given to Rogers by the greatest part of the people at the execution: “even his children assisted at it, comforting him in such a manner that it seemed as if he had been led to a wedding.” He was also D. M. Kenyon’s 14th great grandfather.
Seven Virtues That Build Nobility

Most companies have mission statements and far to many of them were drawn up in the marketing department rather than by operations managers. While mission statements speak of goals, virtue statements, by contrast, define how a member of an organization should behave. The Book Of Seven Virtues is a guide to making work, community, and family life a holistic experience of fulfillment while at the same time promoting efficiency, productivity, loyalty and passion everywhere.

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