6.26.2020 – No love? Am only

No love? Am only
sounding brass or clanging cymbals
mankind or Angel

If I speak in the tongues of men or of angels, but do not have love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal – 1 Corinthians 13:1 (NIV)

Much is made in the history books of the fact that the United States of America twice held national elections in the middle of a war.

In 1864, with the country engaged in Civil War, Abraham Lincoln ran for reelection.

Re election alone had not been tried since Andrew Jackson.

An election in the middle of a Civil War?

World couldn’t quite figure that one out.

In 1944, with World War 2 winding down, Franklin Roosevelt ran for the 4th time.

That’s not so much you would think but consider that Mr. Churchill called an election about 8 months later and got tossed out of office.

Stalin never did understand how Mr. Churchill allowed that to happen.

In less than 4 months, we are going to try and have a national election.

I put it to you that if you took the national mood at its worst in 1864 and combined it with the national mood at its worst in 1944 and then mixed it real good, the result would not come close the the national mood right now.

It is ugly out there.

And it is going to get worse.

Not much love.

Lots of sounding brass and cymbals.

If not with us, then against us and take no prisoners.

We are better than this.

At least we were.

Faith?

Hope?

Love?

All seem to have been thrown out the window for baseball bats and bricks.

I have to ask myself that old WWJD.

What would Jesus do?

WHAT would Jesus do!

Once he stopped throwing up I think Jesud would do one of two things.

It wouldn’t surprise me if he went through the United States like he went through the Temple saying, “My house will be called a house of prayer for all nations, but you have made it a den of robbers!”

That or he would turn and shake the dust of his sandals on the United States and walk away.

That 2nd option is by far the worse.

6.23.2020 – music heard with you

music heard with you
more than music, without you
all is desolate

Adapted from the Conrad Aiken’s Music I Heard.

I like his work though I had never heard until Savannah attached itself to myself late in life.

Yet the words, Music I heard with you was more than music, And bread I broke with you was more than bread, describe life with my wife that it seems like I have known his work for years.

Music I heard with you was more than music,
And bread I broke with you was more than bread.
Now that I am without you, all is desolate,
All that was once so beautiful is dead.

Your hands once touched this table and this silver,
And I have seen your fingers hold this glass.
These things do not remember you, beloved:
And yet your touch upon them will not pass.

For it was in my heart you moved among them,
And blessed them with your hands and with your eyes.
And in my heart they will remember always:
They knew you once, O beautiful and wise!

Like Johnny Mercer, the poet Conrad Aiken was known as Savannah’s own.

Mr. Aiken, according to his entry in Wikipedia, was awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship, taught briefly at Harvard, and served as consultant in poetry for the Library of Congress.

Somehow, he was also largely responsible for establishing Emily Dickinson’s reputation as a major American poet.

Yet, in Savannah, he might be best know for recognizing a word combination in the daily newspaper where one day under SHIPS – ARRIVALS – DEPARTURES, he saw the notice;

Cosmos Mariner—Destination Unknown.

Mr. Aiken took notice of the notice.

Mr. Aiken recognized the pure accidental poetry of the words.

He like the arrangement.

He like the rythym.

He liked it so much you that can read to this day as he had it carved into a marble bench.

A marble bench that sits next to his grave in a Savannah.

A bench where anyone can sit and watch the ships come and go from the port of Savannah.

Maybe one of them might be the Cosmos Mariner.

And its destination might be unknown.

Maybe I am the Cosmos Mariner.

Going out through the Cosmos.

Destination unknown.

6.20.2020 – Sympathetic thoughts

Sympathetic thoughts.
America cannot be deaf,
to calls such as that.

This was adapted from this paragraph, “While we are thinking of promoting the fortunes of our own people I am sure there is room in the sympathetic thought of America for fellow human beings who are suffering and dying of starvation in Russia. A severe drought in the Valley of the Volga has plunged 15,000,000 people into grievous famine. Our voluntary agencies are exerting themselves to the utmost to save the lives of children in this area, but it is now evident that unless relief is afforded the loss of life will extend into many millions. America cannot be deaf to such a call as that.”

That was said by President Warren G. Harding in the State of Union address on December 6, 1921.

Mr. Harding was referring to problems in Russia at least and not problems at home.

About problems at home, he said, “I am not unaware that we have suffering and privation at home. When it exceeds the capacity for the relief within the States concerned, it will have Federal consideration.”

Mr. Harding also said: “It has been perhaps the proudest claim of our American civilization that in dealing with human relationships it has constantly moved toward such justice in distributing the product of human energy that it has improved continuously the economic status of the mass of people. Ours has been a highly productive social organization. On the way up from the elemental stages of society we have eliminated slavery and serfdom and are now far on the way to the elimination of poverty.

Through the eradication of illiteracy and the diffusion of education mankind has reached a stage where we may fairly say that in the United States equality of opportunity has been attained, though all are not prepared to embrace it. There is, indeed, a too great divergence between the economic conditions of the most and the least favored classes in the com

The further we get from President Harding and the more time we spend in the present, President Harding doesn’t look so bad.

After all is said and done about Mr. Harding, maybe Alice Roosevelt Longworth, daughter of Theodore Roosevelt and Eleanor Roosevelt’s cousin summed him up best when she said, “Harding wasn’t a bad man. He was just a slob.”

I feel like I know what she meant.

6.14.2020 – God’s curiosity

God’s curiosity
about Himself resulted
in what we call us

Last night my wife and I watched the protests in Downtown Atlanta of another police shooting of a black man.

Protesters had managed to line up across a stretch of one of the busiest freeway in United States.

A Wendy’s Restaurant where the shooting took place went up in flames.

Rather than turning up the volume on the protest, my friend and reporter for 11Alive Doug Richards, who was on the scene, said that the fire more of less was freaking out the protesters and they ran for cover.

Talking with my wife as the next day, she asked me, why did God create these differences?

These differences in skin color and size and language.

“Was it to test us?”, she asked.

I was quick to say yes.

God wanted to see how we might handle these differences.

God wanted to see if we would react with fear or confidence.

My wife pointed out that the problems went back, all the way back.

Before the Tower of Babel.

What differences where there, on the surface, between Caine and Able.

Yet Caine hated Abel.

So God knew how we would handle the differences if skin color and language and how to serve food and sing songs.

Not well and God knew it.

So why?

In my reading today, my interest was sparked by the comment about another author, that he wanted to live long enough (this was an old comment) so that Thomas Mann could finish the last book of Joseph and His Brothers.

I don’t know anything about this book except that it has been selected as my summer time read.

I did find this one quote though that intrigued.

“Man, then was a result of God’s curiosity about Himself”, wrote Mr. Mann.

Maybe that is the reason for all the differences.

God creates man.

God creates forgiveness.

God creates salvation.

Maybe God was curious if these new creations had limits.

Maybe God saw the easiest way to test these new creations was to add to man easy avenues to differences.

Would man react with fear or confidence.

And would the new creations be sufficient for these reaction’s.

I am not dumb enough to say this is the answer.

I am willing to consider it.

And I am willing to put forward a possible response by God.

I am reminded of an anecdote told by the veteran actor of film and stage, Rex Harrison.

Mr. Harrison was on Johnny Carson or maybe an the old Dick Cavett show, but he told a story of how he was in London, rehearsing a play by George Bernard Shaw.

Sorry to say I cannot recall or Mr. Harrison did not name the play.

ANYWAY, Mr. Harrison and the other cast members were having problems with one scene.

The could not, they felt, get it right.

What was the Mr. Shaw after the cast wondered?

No one could agree on anything except that whatever they were trying to do just did not work on stage.

Then, wonder of wonder, George Bernard Shaw himself came by to watch the rehearsal.

Mr. Harrison and the cast called to him and brought him up on stage.

WHAT DID YOU MEAN and WHERE WERE YOU GOING in this scene, they asked.

Mr. Shaw took a copy of the script and sat down to read.

He read through a few pages.

He turned the script back and read through a few pages.

He turned the script back again and read through a few pages.

Mr. Shaw looked up at the cast, cleared his throat and said, “This really is bad isn’t it?”

I like to think God knew what he was doing from square one.

I like to think that for God, there are no surprises.

I would not, anyway, be surprised if God was curious, as if in a lab experiment, about his latest creation.

I would not be surprised if God decided to give to curiosity and create man.

I for one, have no problem, letting God be God and do what he wants.

And I would not be surprised if God admitted that the results, how we handled or behaved or lived with, his new creation, seems to be turning out really bad, isn’t it?

6.4.2020 – 8 minutes, long time

8 minutes, long time
sit and think for 8 minutes
long time, 8 minutes

How long is 8 minutes?

JFK and the 6 seconds in Dallas

US Army bombers and 30 seconds over Tokyo

The minute waltz by Frederic Chopin lasts one minute.

The Kentucky Derby is known as ‘The Most Exciting Two Minutes in Sports’

Eggs cook in three minutes.

The Miracle at Midway took 5 minutes.

The average drive across the Mackinac Bridge takes 6 minutes.

The song Hey Jude last 7 minutes.

When you think about it.

8 minutes is a long time.

What goes through your mind in 8 minutes?

If you were holding someone down, what would you be thinking of for 8 minutes.

If you couldn’t breathe, what would you be thinking of for 8 minutes.

8 minutes is a long time.

How long should 8 minutes that change the world last?

8 minutes is a long time.

8 minutes can be a life time.