courage and faith in
living maintain reservoir
of human feeling

The Addison Gallery of American Art has a gallery of photographs titled, “Harlem Heros.”

One photograph is of Sarah Victor.

Famous for a time and to some, Sarah Victor was the pastry chef at the Algonquin hotel.

In his book on managing the hotel, Frank Case wrote about Sarah.

When she died all the papers featured obituaries and the dignified Times saw fit to print a two-column picture with a story. She was a devout Catholic and at her funeral, although it was a cold winter morning and the hour an early one, the church was filled with mourning friends, both black and white. If any of you have a Sarah in your home, treasure her; you will never get another.

In the Addison Gallery of American Art, below the photo of Sarah, there is the following text written by Richard Wright from his book, “Twelve Million Black Voices” where he writes:

We go home pleasantly tired and sleep easily, for we know that we hold somewhere within our hearts a possibility of inexhaustible happiness … We take this feeling with us each day and it drains the gall out of our years … Some say that, because we possess this faculty of keeping alive this spark of happiness under adversity, we are children. No, it is the courage and faith in simple living that enable us to maintain this reservoir of human feeling …

The full text reads …

We go home pleasantly tired and sleep easily, for we know that we hold somewhere within our hearts a possibility of inexhaustible happiness; we know that if we could but get our feet planted firmly upon this earth, we could laugh and live and build. We take this feeling with us each day and it drains the gall out of our years, sucks the sting from the rush of time, purges the pain from our memory of the past, and banishes the fear of loneliness and death. When the soil grows poorer, we cling to this feeling; when clanking tractors uproot and hurl us from the land, we cling to it; when our eyes behold a black body swinging from a tree in the wind, we cling to it. . . .

Some say that, because we possess this faculty of keeping alive this spark of happiness under adversity, we are children. No, it is the courage and faith in simple living that enable us to maintain this reservoir of human feeling, for we know that there will come a day when we shall pour out our hearts over this land.

Neither are we ashamed to go of a Saturday night to the crossroad dancehall and slow drag, ball the jack, and Charleston to an old guitar and piano. Dressed in starched jeans, an old silk shirt, a big straw hat, we swing the girls over the plank floor, clapping our hands, stomping our feet, and singing:

(12 Million Black Voices: A folk history of the Negro in the United States, Viking, New York, 1941).

The courage and faith in simple living that enable us to maintain this reservoir of human feeling.

DEI my ass.

If you watched the scene today in the Oval Office and you were proud …

opportunity to
contribute enormously
to cause of freedom

According to Wikipedia, “Why We Fight is a series of seven propaganda films produced by the US Department of War from 1942 to 1945, during World War II. It was originally written for American soldiers to help them understand why the United States was involved in the war, but US President Franklin Roosevelt ordered distribution for public viewing.

Academy Award-winning filmmaker Frank Capra, daunted but impressed and challenged by Leni Riefenstahl’s 1935 propaganda film Triumph of the Will, worked in direct response. The series faced various challenges, such as convincing a noninterventionist nation to get involved in the war and to become an ally of the Soviet Union. Many entries feature Axis powers’ propaganda footage from up to 20 years earlier, recontextualized to promote the Allies.

Also according to Wikipedia, Mr. Capra had a meeting with General George Marshall discuss plans for the movies.

Mr. Capra writes in his autobiography, The Name Above the Title: An Autobiography )New York: Macmillan, 1971) that General Marshall said to him: “Now, Capra, I want to nail down with you a plan to make a series of documented, factual-information films—the first in our history—that will explain to our boys in the Army why we are fighting, and the principles for which we are fighting. … You have an opportunity to contribute enormously to your country and the cause of freedom. Are you aware of that, sir?”

Documented, factual-information films …

That will explain to our boys in the Army why we are fighting …

and the principles for which we are fighting …

You have an opportunity to contribute enormously to your country …

You have an opportunity to contribute enormously to the cause of freedom …

The cause of freedom.

Isn’t that what this Country was all about?

Maybe we need to watch these movies again.

I don’t think the idea of making a contribution to the cause of freedom is much on anyone’s mind today.

Are you aware of that, sir?

what Psalms do for me
express same delight in God
which made David dance

The most valuable thing the Psalms do for me is to express that same delight in God which made David dance.

I am not saying that this is so pure or so profound a thing as the love of God reached by the greatest Christian saints and mystics.

But I am not comparing it with that, I am comparing it with the merely dutiful “church-going” and laborious “saying our prayers” to which most of us are, thank God not always, but often, reduced.

Against that it stands out as something astonishingly robust, virile, and spontaneous; something we may regard with an innocent envy and may hope to be infected by as we read.

From Reflections on the Psalms by C.S. Lewis (Geoffrey Bles Ltd, London, 1958).

You, God, are my God,
earnestly I seek you;

I thirst for you,
my whole being longs for you,

in a dry and parched land
where there is no water.

I have seen you in the sanctuary
and beheld your power and your glory.

But the king will rejoice in God;
all who swear by God will glory in him,
while the mouths of liars will be silenced.

From Psalm 63.