June 2009

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Crying

June 25, 2009 in Public Service | No comments

Reading the current story of Governor Mark Sanford I hear the faint strains of Roy Orbison in the background.  Despite my political disagreements with the Governor, I have no taste for this public spectacle.  Who among us has not known “impossible love?”  Those who have gravitate more toward compassion than condemnation.

The argument that his sin is not the affair but being “wacky” is a major puzzle.  We’re talking about a man with an unrequited desire to refuse $700 million in federal stimulus money for his state’s school children.  Wacky?  Hell yes, but we don’t need to look at his personal life to know it.  Thank God for that South Carolina Court.

I know the Governor was AWOL from his job.  If I lived in South Carolina I would have a keen appreciate of that and fervently hope for more.

The point though is that we desperately need to agree to a new public standard concerning private behavior.  We all are too flawed to continue dragging these issues into the public square with the belief that’s where we’ll find a thoughtful result.  Resolution, if at all available, rests with the individual, the family and at times friends.   If not then come election time let’s please stop asking where all the good candidates have gone.

Neda

June 23, 2009 in The Human Spirit | No comments

Watch the video of Neda Agha-Soltan’s death in Tehran Saturday and any concept that the turmoil is a matter confined internally to Iran disappears.  She pulls us irreversibly with each moment of her death.  The world is no longer the same.

The experience revives my 11 year-old reaction to much less personal images from the 1956 Hungarian revolution.  They created a personal longing for my country to validate those who stood up for theirs.  Aside from the many who shared those feelings, it didn’t happen of course.  A deep sense of the injustice in life took root.

Saturday Neda Agha-Soltan drives to the area of the anti-government protests with her music instructor.  They step out of the hot car.  A bullet pierces Neda’s chest.  She collapses on the roadway.  “It burned me,” were her last words.  The cameraman circling the scene captures much more than blood pouring from her body.  He records her most haunting eyes.  The injustice of this death deepens its collective wound.

A great sense of powerlessness grips our world.  My country does not hold the remedy I now know.  No country can make this right.  But injustice shared does not disappear into the void.  The millions who witness Neda’s death hold a force.  It can bring Neda Agha-Soltan’s haunting eyes to each ruling Cleric in Iran.

New Mexico

June 9, 2009 in Family & Life | No comments

Its hold is instant.  Enter New Mexico and life changes.  Ancient land.  Deep turquoise sky.  Pinons and pine; oak and aspen.  Wind caressing spring filled streambeds.  Red to near white clay color the earth.  Native American, Hispanic and Anglo share place unlike any other.  The spirit rises standing within life, past and present.

Tony Hillerman’s collection of the essays of artists is called The Spell of New Mexico.  My favorite from D.H. Lawrence:  “…the moment I saw the brilliant, proud morning shine high up over the deserts of Santa Fe, something stood still in my world, and I started to attend.  There was a certain magnificence in the high-up day, a certain eagle-like royalty…  In the magnificent fierce morning of New Mexico one sprang awake, a new part of the soul woke up suddenly, and the old world gave way to a new.”

Elizabeth and I travel to New Mexico with intent.  Look at possible housing.  Consider possible neighborhood.  Force the comparison.

Mind, body and grandchildren in and near Portland.  Soul in New Mexico.  Thinking choice possible begins a fool’s journey.  But they are among my favorite.  Embrace the fool within and learn.

Present life roots in the physical-mind and body.  The spirit knows not the constraint of time and geography.  Once at home, always at home.  The soul is never really absent from home.

Ancient land.
Deep turquoise sky.
Pinons and pine; oak and aspen.
Wind caressing spring filled streambeds.
Red to near white clay color the earth.
Native American, Hispanic and Anglo share place unlike any other.
The spirit rises standing within life, past and present.