Joined with a group of friends last night to exchange ideas about morality. Is morality relative or absolute? The notion of an absolute, something not disposed to many interpretations, a universal standard, — inevitably is linked to the idea of a deity. Absolutes of any kind, morality included, are affairs of divinity, since we…
Life by Edgar Guest Life is a gift to be used every day, Not to be smothered and hidden away; It isn’t a thing to be stored in the chest Where you gather your keepsakes and treasure your best; It isn’t a joy to be sipped now and then And promptly put back in…
A satisfying exchange of ideas last night, based upon an interview with Stephen Batchelor. Batchelor is a prolific author who treats the intellectual foundations and practice coming from the Buddhist tradition. I have been interested in Buddhist thought for a long while. I think the philosophy of life derived from Buddhism offers an alternative…
Sunday. I awakened, my mind seeming to have skipped a day. It felt like Monday. The New York Times in the blue plastic wrapper lying at the end of the driveway was a clue. Today is Sunday. There’s a fine rain falling. At Starbucks I chose a table. Coffee in hand I considered the…
Easter morning and the first duty of the day is finished. Fifty four plastic eggs were hidden under a fallen oak leaf, or nested in the fork of a sapling. Frost chilled my fingers as I worked. I, the Easter bunny fulfilled my role in the ritual of resurrection. Three children will come later…
Temptation is the work of the flesh represented as at once desirable and dangerous possibility. What the body desires, that the mind re-presents in the grammar of language… Are not words a form of touching, certainly a most oft used manner of touch? Desire and danger at the same time! Temptation is excitement simultaneously…
Wednesday morning, early and the sun has yet to rise. It’s winter after all. Doubting that sleep would return at 5AM, after dressing and the routine bowl of cheerios, here I am at Starbucks. This morning I anticipate traveling for a last time to my friend Al Lykin’s home. Al died subsequent to a…
Do not go gentle into that good night, Old age should burn and rave at close of day; Rage, rage against the dying of the light. Though wise men at their end know dark is right, Because their words had forked no lightning they Do not go gentle into that good night. –excerpt Do…
LITTLE GIDDING by T. S. Eliot (No. 4 of ‘Four Quartets’) I Midwinter spring is its own season Sempiternal though sodden towards sundown, Suspended in time, between pole and tropic. When the short day is brightest, with frost and fire, The brief sun flames the ice, on pond and ditches, In windless cold that…
What is there to say? Sleeping till late this morning (9AM) I hope for recovery from Covid. Some congestion lingers. Does one know if congestion in the throat is advancing or receding? There’s only trust in nature, and no knowing. A return to the Four Quartets by T. S. Eliot is gratifying. I am…
