timeless wisdom … I
hold your broken heart knowing
one day you’ll hold mine

And each person who encountered someone in pain would look into their eyes and inquire: “What happened to you? Why does your heart ache?”

“My father died,” a person might say. “There are so many things I never got to say to him.” Or perhaps: “My partner left. I was completely blindsided.” Or: “My child is sick. We’re awaiting the test results.”

Those who walked from the right would offer a blessing: “May the Holy One comfort you,” they would say. “You are not alone.” And then they would continue to walk until the next person approached.

This timeless wisdom speaks to what it means to be human in a world of pain. This year, you walk the path of the anguished. Perhaps next year, it will be me. I hold your broken heart knowing that one day you will hold mine.

This timeless wisdom speaks to what it means to be human in a world of pain. This year, you walk the path of the anguished. Perhaps next year, it will be me.

From Two Lessons From an Ancient Text That Changed My Life by Sharon Brous in the New York Times Op/Ed on January 19, 2024. Rabbi Brous is the founding and senior rabbi of Ikar, a Jewish community based in Los Angeles, and the author of “The Amen Effect.”

Rabbi Brous ends with this:

Small, tender gestures remind us that we are not helpless, even in the face of grave human suffering. We maintain the ability, even in the dark of night, to find our way to one another. We need this, especially now.

We desperately need a spiritual rewiring in our time.

day I ‘cultivate’
books … day I’ll know I’ve truly
failed as a human

As soon as I saw the headline, Do You Have ‘Bookshelf Wealth’?, in the New York Times, I said to myself, don’t read it.

It will just … well I didn’t know for sure what it would do but I knew it would do something to me.

In the end, it gave me hope.

It was an article that dealt with the reaction of book people to people who decorate with books and book shelves and book cases.

Here is the gist of it:

Kailee Blalock, an interior designer in San Diego, posted a video to TikTok last month that sought to define bookshelf wealth and school viewers in achieving the aesthetic in their own homes.

“These aren’t display books,” Ms. Blalock, 26, cautions in the video, which has been viewed over 1.3 million times. “These are books that have actually been curated and read.”

This literary look, she went on to say, goes well with pictures hung willy-nilly on the walls, sometimes even partly blocking the shelves, as well as mismatched fabric patterns and a bit of clutter.

In an interview, Ms. Blalock expanded on her advice. “I think to really achieve the look and the lifestyle, someone has to be an avid reader and has to appreciate the act of collecting things, especially art and sculpture,” she said.

Though Ms. Blalock did not originate the term “bookshelf wealth,” her video has spurred plenty of online discussion. “The day I ‘cultivate’ books instead of buying what I like to read is the day I’ll know I’ve truly failed as a human,” one user commented. Others remarked how bookshelf wealth was less about reading and more about regular old wealth.

Breana Newton, a legal coordinator in Princeton, N.J., who posts regularly about books on TikTok, was one of the people who responded to Ms. Blalock’s video. “I am going to show you bookshelf wealth,” Ms. Newton, 33, says in a video of her own. “Ready?”

She then gives viewers a brief tour of her home, showing books everywhere — on shelves, in overflow piles here and there, and strewed across the bed. Absent is the sense that the rooms have been staged, or that the books were bought with the consideration of how they would look on Instagram.

Been through this discussion before.

I am reminded of the artist played by Max von Sydow in the movie, ‘Hannah and Her Sisters”.

His character, a struggling artist, throws a rock star prospective client out of his gallery when the rock star asks, ‘What do you got that would go with a red ottoman?’

I always end up with the self graded quiz on CLASS in the book, CLASS, by Paul Fussell.

Mr. Fussell writes:

Bookcase(s) partially filled with books – add 5
Any old leather bindings more than 75 years old – add 6
Bookcase(s) filled with books – add 7
Overflow books stacked on floor, chairs, ETC – add 6

The reported comment, “The day I ‘cultivate’ books instead of buying what I like to read is the day I’ll know I’ve truly failed as a human,” warmed me all over.

So long as buying the books someone wants to read is a sign of being human, I feel that we still got a chance.

my soul is sick with
every report, wrong, outrage
with which earth is filled

Oh for a lodge in some vast wilderness,
Some boundless contiguity of shade,
Where rumour of oppression and deceit,
Of unsuccessful or successful war,
Might never reach me more! My ear is pained,
My soul is sick with every day’s report
Of wrong and outrage with which earth is filled.

Adapted from The Task and Other Poems: The Timepiece Book II, by William Cowper (CASSELL & COMPANY, LONDON, PARIS, NEW YORK & MELBOURNE – 1899).

I guess it is the same old question of wars and rumors of wars.

If I ignore the rumors, do the wars go away?

If I ignore the news, does the news go away?

The news and news reporting and the endless commentating is like the work of traffic engineers.

Traffic engineers can’t fix traffic, but they can spread it out over a greater area.

I stole that line from Bill Bryson.

Back in the day, the World and National News was a 15 minute show.

Now it’s a never ending endless story.

If you remember that terrible kids song, the song that never ends, the news cycle never ends and leaves me brain dumb and stupefied.

Does that make the news any less important?

What is the definition of important news?

When I wake up, all I want to know about is my morning drive.

And that want has stayed they same whether I am in a small city in Michigan, a major metropolis like Atlanta or the low country of South Carolina.

And I know that any news about traffic that I get on the news is news too old to be of any use to me.

I am reminded of a story from history back when young Theodore Roosevelt (when do you mention Theodore Roosevelt without the preface ‘young’ … but then he was 41 when he became President and as John Hay, the Secretary of State said, “Theodore, you have made a fine start in life and we have high hopes for you … when you grow up), when he was 36, he was President of the New York City Police Commission.

In charge of the Police and responsible for crime management, Commissioner Roosevelt found himself in the middle of a crime wave with the 12 or so New City Daily Newspapers suddenly being filled with the reports of crimes, big and small, all over the city.

Commissioner Roosevelt checked and found there was no increase in Police activity, but there was an increase in crime … reporting.

He called in the newspaper reporters.

They admitted that under pressure from their editors to step up crime reporting, the reporters had figured out that the shift reports by the Police were left out in the open at the Sergeant’s Desk in Police Precincts all over the city.

The reporters could read these reports and have access to the facts of any and all crimes throughout the city and the reporters reported them.

Commissioner Roosevelt ordered the shift reports be locked up and the crime wave came to a stop.

If I stop watching the news will it all go away?

Oh for a lodge in some vast wilderness,
Some boundless contiguity of shade,
Where rumour of oppression and deceit,
Of unsuccessful or successful war,
Might never reach me more! My ear is pained,
My soul is sick with every day’s report
Of wrong and outrage with which earth is filled.