I was free of all anxieties worries and sorrows that belong
I was free.
I had recovered my liberty.
I belonged to God, not to myself: and to belong to Him is to be free, free of all the anxieties and worries and sorrows that belong to this earth, and the love of the things that are in it.
What was the difference between one place and another, one habit and another, if your life belonged to God, and if you placed yourself completely in His hands?
The only thing that mattered was the fact of the sacrifice, the essential dedication of one’s self, one’s will.
The rest was only accidental.
The Seven Storey Mountain by Thomas Merton (Harcourt, Brace and Company New York, 1948).
Wellllll, sorry, but I do not feel free.
I do not feel that I have recovered my liberty.
See, I have promises to keep.
And miles to go before I sleep.
I feel I could place myself completely in God’s hands, but the bills keep coming.
The rent has to be paid.
I understand that the only things that matters is the sacrifices of life, the essential dedication of one’ self and will.
But it is no accident that the mail keeps bringing those obligations.
But it is no accident that the texts keep bringing those requests.
The fracking boom has transformed the United States into the world’s largest producer of natural gas. But fracking also produces huge volumes of salty wastewater laden with heavy metals, radioactive materials and cancer-causing benzene, as well as hazardous chemical additives from the fracking process.
Ohio became a destination for wastewater because decades ago, long before fracking, it received permission from the federal government to regulate its own injection wells, which were then just a small part of the oil and gas industry. As a result, today it’s easier to drill injection wells in Ohio than in states like Pennsylvania where there’s federal oversight.
The industry says injection wells are tightly regulated, and that thousands of feet of rock and shale safely contain the wastewater. Injection wells, “when properly sited, constructed, operated, and regulated, do not pose a significant threat to drinking water,” said Rob Brundrett, president of the Ohio Oil and Gas Association.
At a Republican Party executive meeting last August, Ohio State Senator Brian Chavez, who stepped down as DeepRock’s chief executive after taking elected office in 2023, downplayed the threat posed by injection wells, describing the brine as “ancient seawater,” according to an ethics complaint filed against him with the state’s legislative ethics committee. Mr. Chavez, who chairs the senate energy committee, also compared the radioactivity levels of the waste to that of a banana, according to the complaint, which was filed by residents of Washington County over his relationship with DeepRock.
A spokesman for Ohio Senate Republicans called the ethics complaint meritless.
In a statement, Laura Goins, an attorney for DeepRock, said, “We respect the concerns that have been raised by members of the community and believe those concerns deserve to be addressed through a science-based regulatory process.” She said “DeepRock remains committed to protecting public health, drinking water resources, and the environment.”
Got to love the language and words here.
… when properly sited, constructed, operated, and regulated, do not pose a significant threat to drinking water,
… remains committed to protecting public health, drinking water resources, and the environment.
Yeah ………… sure.
Remember any one of us who grew up in the United States between 1923 and 1975 will show the effects of leaded gas in our bones.
Centuries from now, if the world still exists, archeologists will be able to date skeletons by measuring the lead in our bones.
So all this Fracking that leads to large amounts of natural gas and some oil has an unseen price tag.
Who would have guessed that pumping wastewater from fracking underground could have unforeseen negative impace.
Of course had they been predicted, they would no longer have been unforeseen.
And isn’t the word, unforeseen, a great word?
According to the word history website, etymonline: “not foreknown,” late 14c., from un- (1) “not” + past participle of foresee. Similar formation in Middle Dutch onvoresien, Dutch onvoorzien, Middle High German unvorsen. A verb unforesee “fail to anticipate” is attested in 17c.“
I like that dutch version.
Onvoresien.
Fail to anticipate.
Unforeseen points to it wasn’t our fault, who knew?
While, Fail to anticipate …
Seems like someone should have known better.
I am reading the book Random Harvest by James Hilton (Boston: Little, Brown And Company, 1941).
Neither here nor there but if you are casting about for something to read this summer I recommend downloading the epub version from FadedPage (click here) for free.
Mr. Hilton also wrote Lost Horizons of Shangri-La fame and Good bye Mr. Chips.
Random Harvest starts with the epigram:
“According to a British Official Report, bombs fell at Random.” — GERMAN OFFICIAL REPORT
Anyway, reading along I came to this passage that is the source for today’s haiku.
Mr. Hilton writes about the hero of Random Harvest that:
He was increasingly interested in the background of knowledge and theory behind the lives of men, and the astounding clumsiness of world behavior compared with the powers of the planning mind. To use Werneth’s favorite word, he found the paradox teasing.
There is a lot packed into those two lines, especially:
the astounding clumsiness of world behavior compared with the powers of the planning mind.
To use Werneth’s favorite word, he found the paradox teasing.
That Mr. Clausewitz writes that no plan lasts 5 minutes after the battle starts.
Still, when you read about all the planing, meetings, proposals, public hearings and investigations when anything from a sidewalk crossing to a super highway to a bridge to some corporate marketing plan, the clumsiness of world behavior compared with the powers of the planning mind is truly astounding.
The paradox is assuredly teasing.
It seems even God himself looking down on the world today might murmur … something went wrong here.
was swallowed one time deep in the dark and came out alive after all
If I should pass the tomb of Jonah I would stop there and sit for a while; Because I was swallowed one time deep in the dark And came out alive after all.
If I pass the burial spot of Nero I shall say to the wind, “Well, well!” — I who have fiddled in a world on fire, I who have done so many stunts not worth doing.
I am looking for the grave of Sinbad too. I want to shake his ghost-hand and say, “Neither of us died very early, did we?”
And the last sleeping-place of Nebuchadnezzar — When I arrive there I shall tell the wind: “You ate grass; I have eaten crow — Who is better off now or next year?”
Jack Cade, John Brown, Jesse James, There too I could sit down and stop for a while. I think I could tell their headstones: “God, let me remember all good losers.”
I could ask people to throw ashes on their heads In the name of that sergeant at Belleau Woods, Walking into the drumfires, calling his men, “Come on, you … Do you want to live forever?”
Losers by Carl Sandberg as published in Smoke and Steel in The Complete Poems of Carl Sandburg (Harcourt, Brace: New York, 1970).
squares circles contain rectangles precision in counterpoint passion
Sunrise – July 17, 2026
In his book about baseball, Take Time for Paradise, Bart Giamatti or A. Bartlett Giamatti as he was known when he was Commissioner of Major League Baseball (also known as the father of actor Paul Giamatti), wrote:
How to characterize the structural principles grounding this game?
Squares containing circles containing rectangles; precision in counterpoint with passion; order compressing energy.
The potentially universal square, whose two sides are foul (actually fair) lines, partially contains the circle, whose radius is at least four hundred feet and whose perimeter is the circle of the fence from foul line to foul line, which contains the circle of the outer infield grass, which contains the square of the diamond, containing the circle of the pitcher’s mound and squares of the three bases.
The circle of the mound contains the rectangle of the pitcher’s slab and faces the circle of the home-plate area, which contains the rectangles of the batter’s boxes and the area for umpire and catcher.
At the center of this circle, and existing in eternal tension with the pitcher’s rectangle — seemingly the center of such power, of so many dimensions — is the source of the macro dimensions, the point of reference for all the medium and the larger geometric shapes, the only shape on the field that does not figure the eternal and universal outlines and meanings of square and circle.
We are at home plate, the center of all the universes, the omphalos, the navel of the world. It, too, plays around fours and threes, but altered, a shape unique.
It is my birthday today.
66 years old.
How to characterize the structural principles grounding life?
You might have it all figured out.
You might have it a plan all diagramed out of squares containing circles containing rectangles; precision in counterpoint with passion; order compressing energy.
Like the game of baseball, everything can be laid out.
Then the game starts.
You have this potentially universal square but onto it are 9 different players placed to make a mess of your plan.
Add to that 4 other people who are standing around waiting to decide what you do and what happens to is legal.
You stand at the plate.
You hold a bat.
And that person out standing on the circle of the mound that contains the rectangle of the pitcher’s slab and faces the circle of the home-plate area, throws a ball at you.
That bat you are holding is round.
The ball thrown at you is round.
And you try to hit it square.
As that sign on the wall in the back of the bar in the TV show Cheers said, This is a Square House. Please report any un-fairness to the proprietor.
I am here to tell you that after 66 years at the plate, holding that bat, taking my swings, there is nothing fair about any of it.
You stand at the plate and all you want to do is get home and everyone and everything is set up to stop, slow down, harass or change you plans to get their.
Squares containing circles containing rectangles; precision in counterpoint with passion; order compressing energy.
Squares containing circles containing rectangles.
Precision in counterpoint with passion.
Order compressing energy.
You buys your ticket, you goes up to bat, you takes your chance.
death is stronger than all proud men, throws pair of dice says: read ’em and weep
Death is stronger than all the governments because the governments are men and men die and then death laughs: Now you see ’em, now you don’t.
Death is stronger than all proud men and so death snips proud men on the nose, throws a pair of dice and says: Read ’em and weep.
Death sends a radiogram every day: When I want you I’ll drop in — and then one day he comes with a master-key and lets himself in and says: We’ll go now.
Death is a nurse mother with big arms: ‘Twont hurt you at all; it’s your time now; you just need a long sleep, child; what have you had anyhow better than sleep?
Death Snips Proud Men by Carl Sandberg as published in Smoke and Steel in The Complete Poems of Carl Sandburg (Harcourt, Brace: New York, 1970).
Worth repeating.
Death is stronger than all the governments because the governments are men and men die and then death laughs: Now you see ’em, now you don’t.
Death is stronger than all proud men and so death snips proud men on the nose, throws a pair of dice and says: Read ’em and weep.
Worth repeating, but who will listen?
Death sends a radiogram every day: When I want you I’ll drop in — and then one day he comes with a master-key and lets himself in and says: We’ll go now.
