"moral realism"

E. J. Dionne and David Brooks just completed their weekly commentary on the news on National Public Radio. Dionne is a progressive and Brooks an economic (not social) conservative--yet their conversations are enlightening, civil and full of compromise. The way all debate in this country should be--but sadly isn't. If you've never heard them they usually speak on Fridays.

Today, among other things, they talked about Obama's visit to Hiroshima. They were analyzing the President's speech and Dionne mentioned 'moral realism' as taught by the theologian Reinhold Niebuhr. (OK, where else besides NPR do commentator's reference theologians?!!!)

One of my professors at Harvard Divinity School was Richard Reinhold Niebuhr--nephew of Reinhold and son of another well respected theologian, Richard Niebuhr.

The students always thought being saddled with the name of such well-known brothers much have been hard on R.R. Niebuhr. How to live up to that?

R.R. Niebuhr did, however, did give me the most intriguing moment I ever spent in a classroom.

One lovely spring day he came in, weighed down by books, as usual. The birds were serenading Cambridge as he unpacked. The huge, angled lecture room held 80 or so students.

Without prelude, he went to the blackboard and drew a stick figure. "Homo religiosis" he said, stepping back to admire his drawing. He figured we were Harvard students so he didn't have to translate the Latin to 'religious man(sic)'.

After several minutes of silence except for the bird songs, he went back to the board and drew a flurry of lines around and through the stick figure, nearly obscuring it.

Then the stepped back and said 'the Chaos'--and we knew it must be capitalized.

He stared at the board for what must have been five minutes, though it seemed longer.

Then he moved his head, listening to the birds for a moment, gathered his books and left without another word.

It took quite a while for us to pull ourselves together and begin to leave by ones and twos. Not one word was spoken as we straggled out. It would take days to process the event, but none of us was ready to sully it with words.

We had witnessed a brilliant man from the most important theological family in American history, struggle with an existential crisis before our eyes. And, like the most critical of existential crises, he left it to echo in silence down through all the years of his students lives.

How does a religious person cope with the Chaos of the world's reality? That is the question Professor Niebuhr left us with.

His uncle's answer, what Dionne and Brooks called 'moral realism', was that the first step was to fully recognize the depth and breath of the Chaos. Fully 'know' it. And live morally into that Chaos. Not romanticizing or sugar coating the world or give simplistic (and wrong)  'religious' answers to the
Chaotic 'reality' around us. The answer is 'to stand for something' in the face of the Chaos. Simply that. Don't dream of defeating it, but neither be defeated by it.

Be who you be in the midst of Chaos and Evil. Stand for 'morality' in a senseless and amoral world.

Pretty good lesson, that....Don't you agree?

Ponder that as a life stance....

Sudden Summer

It was in the 80's today, with low humidity. And it may be 90 tomorrow.

Here in Connecticut, we went from a cool, rainy Spring to a Sudden Summer.

It's going to cool off in a few days, the weather people say, but it's a real shock.

Connecticut is, like Ireland, a place where people say, "don't like the weather? Wait a few minutes."

Also, I read online that, though CT was cool and rainy in April and much of May so far, April was, world wide, the hottest April on record!

121 degrees in parts of India. A remarkable drought in much of Africa and Asia.

OK, if any 'climate change deniers" read this blog. Let me know how you can defend that in face of, what are they called again?--The Facts.

(The sad truth is, 'climate change deniers' probably don't read my blog. The very sad truth is, they read blogs of 'climate change deniers' and nothing else. And folks who read these musings and I, would never read a 'climate change denier' blog....)

This political cycle has proved that we are as divided a nation as we have ever been--and that can't be good in any way. The divide gets wider and deeper by the day.

I wish I could fix climate change only a little less than I wish I could fix the deepening, widening divide between us as a nation. Because climate change and nothing much will be 'fixed' as long as we're this divided.

I have four stickers on the back of my car. I call them, to anyone who asks, my four persons of the Trinity.

One is the state seal of West Virginia. That's where I came from and in many ways, that's who I am. Monti semper libere--is our motto, we West Virginians: "Mountaineers are always free". God love us.

The second is the latitude and longitude for Oak Island, North Carolina, where we have gone for vacation as a couple, a family, a family with friends, and with Tim and Mimi and John and Sherrie--all told well over 30 times. Oak Island matters. In my "do not open until my death" letter, I ask that some of my ashes be left on the waters off Oak Island.

The third is the Episcopal Church seal. Nough said about that.

The last is, from 4 years ago, an "Obama 2012" sticker. He was a very good president, I think, who could have been a 'great president' if it weren't for this 'divide' among us.

I'm not even sure what the 'divide' is any more since both Trump and Bernie (eons apart politically) are tapping into the divide.

I don't think it is as simple as 'the establishment' vs. 'the people'. I think it's more complicated than that, though I don't quite know how.

But, since our planet, which has been around for billions of years, is getting hotter and more unstable than its ever been--we need to turn our attention to finding 'common ground' rather than making what divides us deeper and wider.

It's not just the republic that needs us to do that--find common ground--it is this fragile earth, our island home.

Really.

Ponder that, please, please, please with sugar on it.

It's that vital and important.

Like the life of the Planet.

'nough said.....'

One thing I forgot about my dreams....

(You have to read yesterdays post to understand this one.)

In my anxiety dream about the coffee house in nowhere, I actually said to the woman (Mahala??)

 "Of all the Episcopal Churches in all the towns, in all the world, I walked into yours."

Even in dreams, quotes from Casablanca show up.

Anxiety dreams

I had an anxiety dream both last night and the night before.

When I was a student the dreams were usually about being late for a final and not being able to find the classroom, though I knew all the answers, or moving through amber trying to reach the building.

As a priest they have ranged from being chased by a posse of bishops across an open field to beginning a Eucharist for a huge crowd, opening my Book of Common Prayer to discover it is a picture book and everyone gradually leaves because I can't remember the opening acclamation.

The last two nights have been different.

First, let me assure you, my anxiety dreams are rich with symbolism and depth and I ponder them for days, wishing I were in Jungian analysis  again--several sessions for each! Ultimately they are not terrifying, but point me to consider what it is I might be anxious about subconsciously. They never come when I'm consciously anxious, but only to make me ponder and reflect. (Sounds Jungian enough, right?)

Saturday night, I'm traveling in a strange place (It looks like West Virginia) and go into an Episcopal church for Eucharist (I think it's called St. Peter's) and encounter there a woman from my past. Obviously she is someone I had feeling for. She looks a lot like Mahala Holmes. Mahala and I were both counselors in a summer camp when we were juniors in college. She went to Marshall and I went to WVU. She was a lifeguard and I took kids on nature hikes and played softball with them. She was beautiful and unattainable to me.

Anyway, this dream woman and I reunite and she tells me to follow her to her place of work--which is a fancy coffee/desert place in the middle of nowhere. She has to work and I drink coffee and eat a desert she brings me. Finally I must leave and she walks me to the door. Outside, I can't find my car, so I go back in and ask her where it is. "Right in the front lot," she tells me. I go out a different door and the parking lot in that direction is on fire. I circle around the coffee house and can't find my car.

I can't find a way back in and end up near the burning lot again only to realize somehow I've lost my sports coat and my car keys (for the car I can't find!) are in the coat's pocket.

Then I wake up.

Saturday night, I'm at a board meeting of the Mastery Foundation, which I am a member of. There are people there I know and some I don't. It's at the house of one of the board members--a very nice and spacious house. Some of the members are actually from the real Board, some are other people in my life (which confuses me in my dream) and some are total strangers. For some reason, I go for a walk with 'Margaret' (who looks like a much younger version of Margaret Baranoski--a member of St. John's, Waterbury, who I buried years ago).

On our way back from wherever we went, Margaret is hit by what I think is a big, black Landrover. One of the tires comes off the car and I pick it up and carry it into a Post Office (much more like a British Post Office than ours) and get one of the postal workers to help me get it on a table. We open the tire and 'Margaret's' clothes and possessions are in it, but not her body.

I say to the postal worker, "we have to call the police!"

He (who looks like a British actor, maybe a young Michael O'Toole) says to me in a British/Irish accent, "no, lad, you brought this to me, I have to handle it now."

Suddenly I'm back at the house where the meeting is. I find Ann (who is real and the Executive Director of the Foundation) and tell her what has happened. She touches my arm and says (as she has from time to time) "I'm leaving this to you".

I spend the next however long (it seems like an hour) chasing the members of the board around the spacious house trying to get them into the meeting room so I can tell them what has happened.

All to no avail. Like trying to herd cats, they escape me at every doorway. I finally tell our hostess what has happened and say, 'we'll all have to go to the police station in a while'. And she says (I kid you not!) "But there's so much chocolate left!)

I end up in the meeting room in despair with Ann looking at me with her arms crossed and no one coming to my calls.

Then I wake up.

I'll ponder these for weeks. Any Jungian folks out there who have any insights, let me know.

(My unconscious anxiety is probably that we're leaving for Italy June 10th and I hate to travel--I'm a real home-body, truth be known. Or it may be that I'm 69 and was very ill on Saturday--though I slept through it--and I'm having intimations of mortality. I'll be following both those threads and others, I assure you.)

If dreams are 'whispers from God', these were two odd messages! Jung believed dreams were our unconscious seeking to make us more 'whole'. I believe that. I just don't understand it!

Sleep really is the best medicine

I felt a little punk-ish (and I don't mean the rock music) when I went to bed Friday night. I had just finished some Spicy Cajun Trail Mix and I seldom eat anything after 8 pm. But I had no idea what awaited me.

I woke up at 3 am with stomach pain and nausea. Then at 5 am I woke up and rushed to the bathroom. By 7 I was convinced something was badly wrong. I walked the dog, still feeling nauseous but couldn't fix his food because we feed him dry food mixed with stuff we make ground turkey or hamburger with rice, spinach, sweet potato and carrots and I knew I couldn't look at that mixture and remain standing.

So, I went to bed and slept for 4 hours. I still couldn't face food so I slept for another 4 hours. Then I ate a soft boiled egg and slept for 2 hours. And I went to bed at 9 pm and slept until 6:30 am. That's about 19 hours sleep in 24. And when I woke up I felt fine and famished. I ate a big breakfast and went off to church.

I slept right through my stomach bug.

Sleep really is healing.

I'm told that when I was 11 I had mumps and measles at the same time. I was in a darkened room and slept for most of 4 days. That's what I was told. I clearly don't remember because I was asleep....

Only problem with this miracle cure is that the dog stayed in bed with me the whole time except when Bern came to get him to eat or walk. So today, I laid on the bed to read for half-an-hour or so and when I left the dog barked for 5 minutes, ordering me to come back.

Bela doesn't obey much of anything, but if you say 'go to the big bed' he's off up the steps....

Another thing, being abed so much Saturday, my ankles haven't hurt today (they've been bothering me for a month or so). Bern suggested I should spend a day a week in bed with books to help my ankles. It sounds a tad extreme, but, hey, I'm retired. I might just do it....

Critters

We don't live in the country. Cheshire is a pretty dense suburban town. There is a field behind our back yard, but none other in the neighborhood. And people don't have large lots--this part of town was settled before zoning.

But we have lots of critters.

Bern saw a squirrel the other day in the yard she said 'was a big as a spider monkey'. I rather doubt that, but there are some big squirrels and lots of young ones around.

We have a colony or two of chipmunks in our yard. Some may be in our basement from time to time but mostly they live in an old wood pile that we haven't used for a few years since we need to reline our kitchen fire place. We sometimes smell a skunk and I've seen a racoon or two.

And there are several bunnies in the immediate area. One quite large.

And then there are the birds--more birds than I ever remember: wrens, swallows, tons of robins, mourning doves, cardinals, sparrows, a cow bird or two, blue jays, chickadees, crows aplenty and a golden hawk that lives in the very top of a tree two lots down and keeps an eye on the field and backyards. You can hear his cry throughout the day. And the occasional hummingbird since we have lots of red flowers.

And ground hogs--I shouldn't forget them--who live behind us and, in the fall, eat the berries just behind our back yard that have fermented and get drunker than skunks! Or, in this case, drunker than a ground hog should get.

I won't even go into the insects and worms and such.

Just a lot of creatures. I even saw what I thought was a coyote in the field behind our house and a red fox from time to time passes through.

Having grown up in a more rural place, I love the critters.

feeling old

I had blood drawn today for two different doctors I have appointments with next week. Seeing doctors makes me feel old.

My joints hurting makes me feel old.

Not remembering the name of plants and people makes me feel old.

Being half-way through a book before I realize I've read it before makes me feel old.

Forgetting what I'm looking for makes me feel old.

But I have found a cure for 'feeling old'--go sit in the blood draw place for a while.

This morning, in the 20 minutes I was there I saw half-a-dozen people who were, no kidding, OLD.

They could hardly walk, had trouble breathing, had to have someone with them to answer questions, seemed not to know where they were.

I can walk, breathe well, answer questions and (usually) know where I am.

So, whenever I start feeling old, I'm going to sneak into Quest Labs for a while, read a book and watch the 'old people'. Then I'll feel young for a while....Until my ankle hurts or can't remember 'gardenia' or my neighbor's kid's name or am searching through the refrigerator for God knows what.

That will tell me this: time for a visit at the blood drawing place...(what's it called again?...oh, yeal, Quest Labs....