Now I understand better the utility of silence. Nowadays the availability of social media has created a troposphere of unrelieved cacophony, a din of trivia, opining, and pontificating. There is even a class of paid hacks, contracted to generate opinions favorable to their paymaster. My life 1s enriched when I endeavor to just shut…
Last night Peter posed a question to us around the table. “Given that no one chooses to exist, to be born into this world, –What obligates us to choose to be helpful, to act kindly toward others?” That question always touches something deep within me. Something more basic and indescribable than my words awakens…
Outside it’s raw, below zero. In this warm coffee shop protected from the elements, I desire simply to be and to think. Here time is fecund with possibility. Around me others are here for the same reason, a place to be where the differences in lifestyle, economic status, the weight of fortune, become a…
“What the hell do you have to lose? Give me a chance. I’ll straighten it out. I’ll straighten it out. What do you have to lose?” The mostly white crowd cheered. Donald J Trump — appeal to Blacks and Hispanics, Ohio, Aug 22, 2016 I In the world forever one With the informing Love That…
Its a bitter morning, dark and 7 degrees when I last checked. But now the sun illuminates the parking lot, suggesting what lies ahead today will be agreeable. Whatever my mind ruminates upon, there is always a lot more going on. VI We travelers, walking to the sun, can’t see Ahead, but looking back…
In a few days a casino magnate and Reality TV Show celebrity will be inaugurated as President of the United States. The Republican Party with its new majority in both houses of congress cannot wait to destroy the health care insurance of millions by repealing Obamacare. Never mind that they have nothing to put…
The Future For God’s sake, be done with this jabber of “a better world.” What blasphemy! No “futuristic” twit or child thereof ever in embodied light will see a better world than this. Do something! Go cut the weeds beside the oblivious road. Pick up the cans and bottles, old tires, and dead predictions….
WORDS 1. What is one to make of a life given to putting things into words, saying them, writing them down? Is there a world beyond words? There is. But don’t start, don’t go on about the tree unqualified, standing in the light that shines to time’s end beyond its summoning name. Don’t praise…
Verse nine Defenseless under the night Our world in stupor lies; Yet, dotted everywhere, Ironic points of light Flash out wherever the Just Exchange their messages: May I, composed like them Of Eros and of dust, Beleaguered by the same Negation and despair, Show an affirming flame. September 1, 1939 by W. H. Auden…
How many years since you’ve remembered the lyrics of White Rabbit, or listened to the tune? Grace Slick belted out her anthem of resistance at a time when American young men were asked to kill Vietnamese young men, in the jungles and villages of Vietnam. At the time one line of resistance to official…
