Letters to the Editor
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The Way of Love.
The bobbers are popping up and down, under the water, and then the fish get fed. No hot sizzle cast iron pot gets used today. Thank the good lard, and we rejoice. Yes.
Inspired from Wendells Berry's novel, "Jabber Crow," paraphrased and shared, with a respectful thanks to Wendell's and golden hen's that lay brown eggs, fried sunny side upward. Good yokes, extra gold. wow.
'The Way of Love.'
...It is a fearful thing to be married to strife and yet live alone, and sleep alone (as I felt in my worst days after war) like the dead in the ground. And yet ever that one night in the wars jungle, I lived under the power of a vow, and I have kept that vow to honor till death.
...It was sometimes in my mind and heart what I had done, and pain will never really leave me until I rest in peace after my life is ended. The sacrifice, home or abroad, is to also live in the desert and feel no joy and see no hope. I remember those old feeling as if the hurt and accumulated pain visits me to inflicted me again, today. That is when I must go on and live by faith alone, faith without hope.
...What good can come from that? I have got to have love in my heart.
...Am I a fool? I know myself to be a man skilled in self-deception, and so maybe (for the sake of argument, for the sake of whatever truth may be in argument) maybe I ought to suppose that I am fooling myself.
...Why should I believe in a virtue such as 'loving-kindness' or would it be wise to bicker and battle at times? Married couples do that each day. I assume it's true and not...
...When at times life seems incomprehensible, at times, as thwarting and outrageous as people can be...
...All I can answer to my own individual self, I must practice to learn 'The Way of Love'...I believe.
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And A Sea Change It Is!
My sense is that the public is roundly and soundly rejecting Bush and his neocon sycophants. Anti-Bush letters my local paper outnumber pro-Bush by four or five to one, and this is a paper that publishes almost all submitted material. No one I talk to has a kind word about Bush or Cheney. Former Bush supports are not saying anything in favor of him and one coworker who was a pro-Bush fanatic, has stopped calling himself a Republican. Many people are impatient with Congress for not moving ahead on impeachment of Bush and Cheney. The "off the table" nonsense is extremely unpopular. By the way, I live in a rural community with a high percentage of high school graduates joining the military.
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Call me crazy
But I really like this quote.
"There is no reason good can't triumph over evil, if only angels will get organized along the lines of the mafia."
--Kurt Vonnegut
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@ IntrovertGirl
The real doom hanging over us -- global warming, or the extinction of honeybees, which could make it much more imminent than we suppose -- does appear at first to have little to do with political squabbles, left, right or indifferent, but that is an illusion.
Politics is just a name for how we agree on what to do about those tasks which individuals can't accomplish by themselves. Being what we are, that inevitably involves squabbling. I would say that while politics is an imperfect tool, it's really the only one we have. At its best it resembles bebop-o's love in motion. At its worst, well...the recent sickness in Washington kind of gives you the idea.
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Nicely done :-)
All you have to do is read one issue of the Reason Foundation's publications to see how absurd absolute libertarianism is -- pretty much on the same level as absolute communism. Neither of them account for simple human greed and love of power.
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@WT
I know you're right, and I suppose my writing is often an emotional response to an intellectual problem. In this case, can't help it.
What this gets at, for me, is the need for a sea change in how we, as humans, view our place in the world and universe. Politics is, of course, part of that, and the Bush Administration is part of the illness that's allowed us to revile and destroy nature in the name of resources and domination, rather than use it to support ourselves with wisdom, health, and foresight.
There's a watershed moment right now in this problem, too. Some of us desperately try to instill reason in humanity's attitudes toward nature (and I'm really talking less about global warming than about use and abuse of water, air, and soil in our own backyards), while others, responding to increasing pressures of population and resources, find recourse from their fears of death and existence in increasingly militant religion (whether Christian or capitalist) that allows a disconnected self-from-nature reality. Look at the popularity of the "Left Behind" series--an indication of fear of the future unknown and the difficulties of modern existence if I ever saw one.
What I'm talking about is simply a personal despair. In many places the environmental movement wins, but it's always the underdog. People only care about the environment now because global warming is threatening their survival. Because of their fear, they are willing to do things like turn a blind eye to, say, mountaintop-removal coal mining and pretend that mythical "clean-burning coal" power plants are good for the environment. It's difficult for me to feel hope when _that which I love most_ is of least consequence to most people.
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@LWM
Cheers ;)
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Oh, the Humanity!
But how can I not have hope for our future when I just this moment received this lovely email from Mr. Burkary Ouaderago in Africa, who's so eager to share his (mis)fortunes with me!
"Dear Sir/madam
I apologize if the contents in this mail are contrary to your moral ethics, which I feel may be of great disturbance to your personal life,... I pray that this email reaches you in the best of health.
l am MR BURKARY OUADERAGO the Chief Auditor, with African Development bank (ADB) Burkina Faso West African. One of our customers Engr Ron Morris, with his entire family were among the victims of December 25, 2003 Air-Crash.
My proposal is that I will like you as a foreigner to stand in as the next of kin or Distant Cousin for us to claim this money, so that the fruits of this old man's labour will not get into the hands of some corrupt government officials who will later use the money to sponsor war in Africa and kill innocent citizens in the search for political power."
Gosh, how can I argue with that? My sense of perspective is hereby restored.