4.20.2025 – why look for living

why look for living
among the dead – not here – has
risen! remember!

Based on the Bible verses:

Why do you look for the living among the dead? He is not here; he has risen! Remember how he told you, while he was still with you in Galilee … (Luke 24:5-6 NIV)

In April 1945, near the end of World War II, C.S. Lewis preached a sermon titled “The Grand Miracle”, which was later published as an essay.

Dr. Lewis closed with:

Two thousand years are only a day or two by this scale. A man really ought to say, ‘The Resurrection happened two thousand years ago’ in the same spirit in which he says, ‘I saw a crocus yesterday.’

Because we know what is coming behind the crocus.

The spring comes slowly down this way; but the great thing is that the corner has been turned.

There is, of course, this difference, that in the natural spring the crocus cannot choose whether it will respond or not.

We can.

We have the power either of withstanding the spring, and sinking back into the cosmic winter, or of going on into those ‘high mid-summer pomps’ in which our leader, the Son of man, already dwells, and to which He is calling us.

It remains with us to follow or not, to die in this winter, or to go on into that spring and that summer.

4.19.2025 – but it is OK

but it is OK
if it doesn’t cost something
not a principle

Adapted from the passage:

So, yeah, I’m keeping my bank account, my pension, my football team (for now) and, I hope, my marriage. This exercise is not about rejecting the modern world or the pleasures and comforts of modern life. It’s about turning away from America and turning towards Europe. One day I’d love to go back to the States and eat a cheeseburger in a Brooklyn dive bar, toasting old friends and new with shots of rail bourbon in the Land of the Free. But not for the time being, not under the current regime.

But it’s OK. It’s not a principle if it doesn’t cost you something.

From the article, This unAmerican life: can you really divest yourself of everything from the US? by By Jeremy Ettinghausen (Sat 19 Apr 2025).

You know what day it is?

April 19, 2025?

2025 marks 250 years since the Battle of Lexington and the start of the American Revolution.

The redcoats are coming.

Paul Revere.

The Minutemen.

British Regulars Advance on Lexington Green.

By the rude bridge that arched the flood,
Their flag to April’s breeze unfurled,
Here once the embattled farmers stood
And fired the shot heard round the world.

250 years of steady progress.

And one guy and his minions undo a lot of it in just 3 months.

Time to go back to the village green and take a stand.

Scary times.

Scary times to take a stand.

We have met the enemy and they are … US.

But it’s OK. It’s not a principle if it doesn’t cost you something.

4.18.2025 – we are all afraid

we are all afraid
because retaliation
is real – that’s not right

“We are all afraid,” Ms. Murkowski said, speaking at a conference in Anchorage on Monday. After pausing for about five seconds, she acknowledged: “It’s quite a statement. But we are in a time and a place where I certainly have not been here before. I’ll tell you, I’m oftentimes very anxious myself about using my voice, because retaliation is real. And that’s not right.”

Alaska Senator, Lisa Murkowski as quoted in the article, A Startling Admission From a G.O.P. Senator: ‘We Are All Afraid’ By Annie Karni.

Retaliation is real.

And that’s not right.

I am reminded of the James Thurber fable, The Wonderful O (Simon and Schuster, New York, 1957) that takes place on an island where the letter O is banned along with everything and anything with the letter O in in it.

Two geese were fine but if there was just one bird, that goose had to go because of the O.

Of course the people finally revolt against this madness.

This speech by Andrea, one of the islanders, stands out.

“Be not afraid to speak with O’s,” said Andrea at last. “We cannot live or speak without hope, and hope without its O is nothing, and even nothing is less than nothing when it is nthing. Hope contains the longest O of all. We mustn’t lose it.”

We cannot live or speak without hope.

Hope without its O is nothing, and even nothing is less than nothing when it is nthing.

Hope contains the longest O of all.

We mustn’t lose it.

Hard to have hope right now but it is about all we have left.

At least Thurber ends his fable with:

“Was it a battle? And did we win?” the children cried.

The old man shook his head and sighed, “I’m not as young as I used to be, and the years gone by are a mystery, but ’twas a famous victory .

We have to hope.

We have to have hope.

4.17.2025 – knowing not enough …

knowing not enough …
we must apply – willing not …
enough – we must do

Based on the aphorism of poet, playwright, novelist, scientist, statesman, theatre-director, and critic Johann Wolfgang von Goethe that goes:

“Knowing is not enough; we must apply. Willing is not enough; we must do.”

(As it appears in Maxims and Reflections by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe Translated by Thomas Bailey Saunders, Macmillan, London, 1908 – Page 130 #324)

According to Wikipedia, “In a letter written to Leopold Casper in 1932, Einstein wrote that he admired Goethe as ‘a poet without peer, and as one of the smartest and wisest men of all time’. He goes on to say, ‘even his scholarly ideas deserve to be held in high esteem, and his faults are those of any great man’.“

And that is good enough for me.

An aphorism, according to the Online Merriam Webster, was originally used in the world of medicine. Credit Hippocrates, the Greek physician regarded as the father of modern medicine, with influencing our use of the word. He used aphorismos (a Greek ancestor of aphorism meaning “definition” or “aphorism”) in titling a book outlining his principles on the diagnosis and treatment of disease. That volume offered many examples that helped to define aphorism, beginning with the statement that starts the book’s introduction: “Life is short, Art long, Occasion sudden and dangerous, Experience deceitful, and Judgment difficult.“

Knowing is not enough; we must apply.

Willing is not enough; we must do.

Almost every minute of everyday there someone calling out that they know what the current administration is doing is wrong.

Folks know it.

Folks are willing to do something about it.

But nothing seems to get done.

We MUST DO!