read watch the sunset
watch the moon rise that’s all
isn’t it enough
I watch old movies.
I read.
I watch the sunset.
I watch the moon rise.”
That’s all?”
“That’s all?
Isn’t it enough?
Serenity is a very elusive quality.
I’ve been trying all my life to find it.
I’m very ordinary.
Conversation between Ray Kinsella and J.D. Salinger in the book Shoeless Joe by by W. P. Kinsella (1983, New York : Ballantine Books).
Never really listened to any music by the group U2.
Maybe I was always confused that there lead singer was not related to Sonny Bono.
Maybe, back in the day of music VIDEO, some U2 video of what I think was a live concert of the band performing.
What I remember is that it was a wide shot of a stage with a crowd with some flaming cauldrens in the background and this feller on stage marching back and forth in a sweat and I would click to the next station.
But one line of one song is etched in memory.
I still don’t know what I’m looking for.
Any one who reads these essays from time should be aware that I am a Christian or someone who as accepted the good news of the gift of Christ so I will say, that in the big picture, I do know what I am looking for and that I have found it.
But that leaves the little picture.
Life here on earth.
So much angst.
So much doubt.
Too much hate.
If someone asked me, and no one askes me anything anymore, what I am I looking for, I am not sure I could do better than to say I am very ordinary and all my life I have been searching for serenity and serenity is a very elusive quality.
I am often at a loss to explain myself.
To make up for that, I will recount old stories I have read in books or scenes from old movies an in effort to add to conversation.
That I remember these old stories and old movies is, more or less, a curse of my memory.
But there you are.
There I am.
I watch old movies.
I read.
I watch the sunset.
I watch the moon rise.
That’s all.
Isn’t it enough?
Serenity is a very elusive quality.
I’ve been trying all my life to find it.
I’m very ordinary.
No Haiku For You 