Light In A Dark Time
We live in a dark time. Anything that can be said is relative to context. I write in a first world country, in relative safety. My circumstances are enviable. So far no drought, no floods, and abundance of food. Today I am gainfully employed. Many others who live elsewhere would happily trade places with me.
Yet by past standards I live in a dark time. As always I peruse the front page of the New York Times in the morning. Today’s front page features an article stating that the death toll in Puerto Rico due to the advent, one year ago, of hurricane Maria has risen from 64 to 2,975. Why the severe under count? I am unwilling to give the administration the benefit of the doubt by citing a number of qualifying factors. It seems to me that the palpable racism, the classism demonstrated toward the non-caucasian poor is the fundamental motivation for the under count. Americans who are Puerto Rican simply “didn’t count” as much as the 
people of Houston who also suffered from a devastating hurricane at about the same time. Thus the drastic under count. “They are unlikely to ever vote Republican, why invest more than necessary in their recovery,” is the reasoning that follows. This administration is so blinded by racism they are unable to do 
simple math. counting the bodies.
I was invited to a house party this past Saturday evening. Laura and I were invited to a friend’s home for an evening of “Words and Tunes.” I would estimate that around fifteen to twenty people came to read poetry, a piece of prose they had written, to play an original composition of music, or perform a song. Of course there was food and drink. Much wine and sangria were consumed. It was a divine evening for everyone in the room. The music and the spoken word, emotions and perceptions, each presenters style serving as a life-line, a life boat on a storm-tossed sea The concluding piece of the evening was a reading by Ruth of a dream of the house in which we were present, a house transformed, enlarged by the music and poetry. At the conclusion of the evening we held hands in a giant circle in a ritual of gratitude and parting.
Light in a dark time.
