05.14.10
She is big-time bad news and Pubs must be unanimous in opposing her
More insight into Elena Kagan is surfacing. There’s her senior thesis, in which she goes beyond examining the reasons why radical socialism never gained a foothold in America to yearning that it still might. There’s her role, during her stint as Harvard Law dean, in covering up the Tribe-Ogletree plagiarism scandal. There’s her professed admiration for Cass Sunstein.
It is now confirmed that she is a dyed-in-the-wool Freedom-Hater.
02.01.10
The domestic front of World War III comes to our schools – today’s edition
Public school teachers are distributing this to students on our dime.
09.15.09
The skinny on Valerie Jarrett
Last year, when so many of us were nearly out of our minds with frustration at the way TCM was able to prevent his past from becoming an issue of the magnitude it deserved – remember the first round of radical associations: Frank Marshall Davis, the Saul Alinsky network, Ayres and Dorn, Rashid Khalidi, Jeremiah Wright? – I found an infinitesimal shred of consolation in the certainty that another wave of revelation would come along. It appears that it’s now here.
08.30.09
A bit of tweaking, perhaps the prelude to an entire facelift
I’ve made some changes to the homepage of my main website. I guess you could call it thinking about my brand. I’d been pondering it for a while. When your two main thrusts are blues-based music performance and right-of-center cultural observation, it’s a bit tricky to present the whole package in one message.
I condensed the who-I-am-and-what-I-do section, added some links in the various categories, and gave the whole thing a soothingly aquatic background. I’d still like to come up with a more suitable picture. For one thing, in all my guitar-playing shots, it seems like I’m sweating.
I guess what it amounts to is a very public posing of the question, “What’s really important to me?” I’m hovering around a conclusion that the answer is different than it was five years ago. I love music. I love food. I love coming across cultural artifacts that increase my understanding of how we got here. I’m always up for some real humor. All that, however, has to be balanced these days with the plain and simple fact that the house is on fire. So my main consideration is how to present a coherent picture of my professional self without coming across as some kind of bug-eyed rooftop shouter.
08.26.09
We’ve said this many times here at BN
The free market can’t work properly unless its participants are moral actors.
Great essay at City Journal by Steven Malanga on the set of virtues that made America the world’s premier economic giant – and a look at their steady erosion since the 1960s.
Two of the money lines come from others whom he quotes. Sociologist Max Weber: “Unlimited greed for gain is not in the least identical with capitalism, and still less its spirit.” Daniel Bell says that what went wrong was that we began “to substitute for religion or morality an aesthetic justification for life.”
06.25.09
The Sanford matter
The guy can put on a heart-wrenching presser, can’t he? It was brimming with the requisite deep respect for the initial good intentions of his mistress to repair her own marriage, oozing with remorse for the spouse, sons, staff and state he let down, drenched in on-the-knees humble yearning to find a way back to spiritual health.
My favorite kind of movie is the noir-era morality play. Double Indemnity, A Place in the Sun, High Noon, Casablanca. They hinge on a moment in which a moral choice is set before someone with unmistakable clarity.
A lot of life is boring or exciting or stressful or interesting or funny or gratifying or whatever, but once in a while, it is uncompromisingly demanding. There are points along the vector at which we are called to make choices that tell God everything He needs to know about the quality of our souls. It’s not a matter of the “deep,” “complicated,” “untamed” nature we express as humans. The heart having its reasons and all that. that’s using the poetic stuff as a smokescreen for unvarnished spiritual failure.
What should Sanford do? He ought to resign as governor, completely remove himself from the public arena, and focus on the supremely uncomfortable work of repairing his role in his family.
At this point, a certain kind of BN reader will no doubt be interested in seeing if I have anything to say about Newt Gingrich, for whom I have expressed admiration on many levels. For the record, I think his failings in this regard disqualify him from seeking the presidency or other high public office ever again. I am curious as to how he and his daughter Jackie Cushman, with whom he recently wrote a book on the basic principles for a happy life, have forged a close relationship, given Newt’s tawdry treatment of her mother. Anybody out there know the inside scoop on this one?
I am also willing to believe that Newt’s conversion to Catholicism is his sincere desire to learn how to face his Lord squarely in all his shame and sinfulness and seek real forgiveness.
It’s also important to state that the behavior of a Sanford or a Gingrich in no way has anything to do with the principles they assert and defend in the realm of public-policy and cultural polemics. Free-market economics, a foreign policy that accounts for enemies, and, yes, the championing of Judeo-Christian values, are good and immutable whether espoused by saints or scoundrels.
When it comes to putting those principles into law or executive policy, though, we must insist on that being done by people who hold themselves to a higher standard than adulters with good minds and intentions.
05.29.09
Freedom-Hater is exactly the correct term
The bit of BN terminology for which I’ve decidedly been taken most to task over the years is “Freedom Hater.” I coined it to characterize those members of the Democrat party – politicians, apparatchiks, pundits, think-tank scholars and fundraisers – who have effected a quantum leap in the party’s century-old instinct toward big government. As I’ve said before, since 1972, when the counterculturists began “working within the system,” the party’s core drive morphed into something beyond just the tax-and-spend welfare-statism of the New Deal and the Great Society. With ever-increasing momentum, the Democrat view of government’s role has come to be that of a force indispensible to continuing the very operation of the universe.
It is now in a new and unprecedented stage. The utopian vision of the mid-twentieth century counterculture has been wedded to the worst aspects of totalitarianism. The new breed of Freedom-Hater is clearly playing for keeps.
A few posts ago, I offered the example of Energy Secretary Chu’s proposal that all the world’s flat roofs be painted white. Taken by itself, this item is worthy of titters and comic derision. Alas, it’s of a piece with a couple of other exhibits of what I mean, and, when one examines them in that light, the chuckles subside and the chills set in. There is San Fran Nan’s statement that, to stave off global warming, “every aspect of our lives must be subjected to an inventory,” (do I need to spell out who is going to conduct this inventory?) and then there is Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood’s determination to “coerce [us] out of our cars.” (Yes, I know, LaHood is a Republican, but that doesn’t mean a great deal these days, as we all know. He serves, after all, at the pleasure of the most fearsome Freedom Hater America has yet produced.)
Thes people play for keeps. These aren’t off-the-cuff remarks designed to have a chance of affecting the conversational climate in our country. These people are telegraphing our future. Think back to TCM’s “smart box,” whichhe wanted to see as a replacement for our current thermostats. Come forward a bit to the last few weeks and the obvious relish with which the regime is gearing up to redesign the products of the car companies it now owns.
Gun sales are up in this country, but I think the most important instrument of protection we have at our disposal right now is a finely tuned intellectual radar. As I say, these people aren’t offering casual remarks in the hopes of getting a little airtime on the dinosaur network evening news. They are letting us know what our lives will be all about. They are assuming we won’t resist. They’re assuming we’re fools, that we’re cattle that can be herded.
That’s the dark essential truth about the whole leftist impulse, going back not only to 1972, but back through 1965, 1933, the 1914 founding of The New Republic and back into the whole Progressive era. (Again, I know a major figure of that era was the Republican Theodore Roosevelt, but it’s the impulse, not the party affiliation I’m talking about when we go back that far.) It’s based on feigned pity for “the common man.” That’s actually a disguise for contempt.
Nancy Pelosi, TCM and their Freedom-Hating colleagues are counting on you to be so cowed that you’ll swallow their patently ridiculous curtailments of your dignity and liberty. Don’t oblige them.
04.04.09
Why self-stewardship matters
Last evening I got together for beers with a friend who is of that delightful type who relishes freewheeling exchanges generously seasoned with differing viewpoints and previously unconsidered perspectives. She’s an investment counselor by trade (not mine, for reasons having to do with our being good friends), a civic-minded sort who supports the arts in our community, reads and travels widely and takes her spiritual journey seriously. She says she’s always voted for Republican presidential candidates until the most recent election, in which she pressed the button for TCM. We’ve had a few get-togethers in which my perplexity at this behavior was our launching point.
It turns out she’s of that breed that I truly can’t get my brain around: the moderate, the citizen who says, “This side has some good ideas on these issues, and the other side has some good ideas on these issues.” I listen intently as she explains how this came to be for her, but I still don’t understand it.
At one juncture, she brought up a point which has surfaced in similar conversations with others. It came up in the context of health care. She said, “There are just some people who aren’t competent enough to provide their own health care.” I gave that a little thought and said, “Well, okay, true enough, but we can extend that and say there are some people who aren’t competent enough to keep themselves in groceries.” She conceded the truth of that.
What I then formulated and put forth was something I’ve been thinking about again since I got up today.
There’s a real sense in which each of us owes it to society to be cultivate as much excellence within ourselves as we can. It’s not just a matter of diong it for our own sake. As our Lord assured us, the poor will always be with us. That said, we can keep their numbers to a minimum by being as sharp as we can. The fewer the number of folks on board who truly need help, the less likely it is that society will look to the state for the solutions to caring for them.
My square old dad was big on trying to exhort me to cultivate excellence – making me join the Boy Scouts, browbeating me about my grades and such – and my response was along the lines of “Yeah, yeah, whatever; can I get back to my rock records now?”
It’s truly only in the last few years, since I’ve been well into middle age, that I’ve seen why this undertaking is of paramount importance. It has everything to do with keeping my freedom. No human profile is more ripe for the picking by socialists and totalitarian zealots than mediocre slobs. It’s not about enabling mom to brag about your achievements at bridge club. It’s about staying out of the re-education camp.
03.14.09
Today’s must-read
Larrey Anderson’s essay at The American Thinker, “The Myth of Relativism and the Cult of Tolerance.”
02.25.09
How I spent the time during which the speech transpired
In my office, with the door shut. Mrs. BN, who claims not to be political but in the last few years has become increasingly interested in what Fox News and radio talk show hosts have to say – principally because that’s what I have on the TV, radio and Internet most of the time – is in the living room, watching it.
We agreed that it was a bad idea for me to be in the living room, too.
I told her that the main reason I’ve been exploring Christianity for the last several months is that I know I have to find a way to deal with the very real and very considrable hate in my heart.
This is war to me. That’s why I came up with the term “Reasonable Gentleman.” Anyone who thinks that Democrats are just fellow human beings with a different perspective on America and governance but basically fine creatures with a core worldview like our own is ripe for the enslavement that is surely their lot.
I ask God how to go about this struggle with the holiest frame of mind of which I’m capable. I don’t want to get anything wrong at this point. Heaven knows plenty is wrong in this universe right now without me doing anything to multiply it.
02.18.09
That internal barometer that tells us when something just ain’t right
One subject I haven’t really weighed in on since it moved to the fore of righties’ concerns is the matter of who gets to decide how to define conservatism. After the Pub clock-cleaning in November, many a pundit didn’t wait for their reeling to subside to chime in. Purists from markedly different schools of thought dismissed the perceived apostates with the urgency of those determined to lead the charge against the newly empowered state Leviathan.
There are some quirky permutations out there, but the schism really boils down to the question of whether “cultural conservatives,” those whose primary concerns are “social issues” have a place at the table of modern conservatism. You’ve read the arguments by now. The camp that believes they aren’t welcome is itself a rather large tent, including east-coast chin-stroking types, such as Kathleen Parker and David Frum, libertarian types such as Neal Boortz, and generally-spot-on-but-occasionally-quite-oddball bloggers such as Rick Moran at Right Wing Nuthouse. The other camp includes, obviously, politically engaged evangelicals, but also flagship journals such as National Review and talk show hosts such as Laura Ingraham and Greg Garrison.
In order to repair this schism as quickly as possible – there is, after all, a socialist takeover of our country, as well as an overall decay of the West, underway – several participants in this discussion are harkening to various bullet-point-type lists of foundational principles that can serve as guides. Russell Kirk’s list of ten conservative principles has been mentioned. Edmund Burke’s reasons for opposing the French Revolution, after having championed the American one, are getting an airing. (In this regard, may I offer the Bent Notes Manifesto as a useful benchmark?)
I think we may be helped by seeing that there are layers, or levels, if you like, to this ideology to which we all claim fealty and proper understanding.
The most accessible layer is to look at what has been going on in the West for the last seventy or eighty years – certainly in the last twenty – and declare what we’re against. You could get most self-proclaimed conservatives of any stripe on board by saying “We stand opposed to
a.) the disingenuous use of the word “diversity” as a way for such institutions as schools, arts councils and human-rights councils to erode a cohesive sense of what the West is about
b.) the whole “green” movement
c.) the notion that one should regard human sexuality in an utterly casual manner
d.) the notion that there is some magic alternative to free-market economics
e.) the notion that some kind of lasting “peace” for all humankind forevermore is achievable
f.) the notion that you can build the kind of vital and durable civilization that we have in fact built without having an ongoing public conversation about God be part of the exchange of ideas that builds it”
I could probably think of a few more items, but you get the idea.
Then there is the level on which we outline the principles that guide us in asserting what we do stand for as specific issues arise in our society.
I know it’s less easy to define and quantify, but the level on which conservatism is examined as a dispostion, a mindset, an attitude, ought to be part of the debate. If your read Kirk’s ten principles, they are really tendencies. They spell out a direction that a conservative’s response to a given societal development takes.
I think a conservative first and foremost takes his cue from history. We have some ten thousand years’ worth of clues as to what works and what doesn’t. Granted, not all institutions, customs or philosophies of governance that lasted a long time have been good, but even in these we can see what righted them with effectiveness and finality.
I also think the conservative, broadly defined, is instinctively wary of the notion of “fairness.” At first glance, a number of things look fair that, upon closer examination, must be regarded in light of nature’s parameters. A handy example of this is the feminist movement. It seems to the observer employing rationality but not referencing biology, psychology or history that men and women are equally suited for anything and everything in this world, from esoteric feats of engineering to nurturing infants to commanding armies to making a home feel like a home. Such an observer would surely conclude that questions of provision, protection, and final decision-making in family situations should not be colored by gender considerations. Alas, when what we know of the above fields of inquiry is brought to bear on our assessment, we are compelled to move toward some other kind of conclusion. Other examples abound, and as I think of them, I’ll use them for future posts on this subject.
My main point, though, is that there is some intuition involved in how a conservative thinks and operates. It’s a little like Louis Armstrong’s remark that if one has to ask what jazz is, he’ll never know.
The Freedom-Haters – yes, there’s that term, and I’ll keep on using it because it is flawlessly accurate – are taking great delight at the cacophony breaking out all over our side. I’m not denying the real points of difference that make for the din, but I think that as our hoss sense ever more clearly tells us that what is being done to a civilization we had assumed to be immutable will in fact destroy it, we’ll find our common ground fairly quickly.
01.31.09
The nobility of the fighter
There was a very important and heated argument on Laura Ingraham’s radio show this morning. Her guest was Bruce Bartlett, historian and economist with whom she was colleagues in the Reagan administration.
Of late, Bartlett has been getting, shall we say, quirkier. He ruffled some feathers with a 2006 book lambasting W. Myself, not being an unqualified W fan by any stretch, I saw some validity in what Bartlett was pointing out. His latest argument, however, is that we should learn to live with the welfare state.
The fur really flew on Ingraham’s show. She ripped him a new one, said, “this isn’t the Bruce Bartlett I knew and worked with.”
His point was that, with the coming boomer aging and unbearable upward pressure on Social Security and Medicare, we must all resign ourselves to higher taxes. When Laura said, “No we mustn’t,” he replied, “Well, if you want to live in a dream world, that’s your prerogative.” Ingraham reminded him that he, along with Arthur Laffer, had been one of the original supply-siders, and then went on to cite a list of particulars from the recent Republican Study Committee’s alternative to the “stimulus package”: cuts in several types of taxes such as capital gains and dividends, and holidays on several other types of taxes. Bartlett responded, “Laura, the votes aren’t there.” She said that that was where courage and leadership came in. His response to that was along the lines of, well, yes, real Republican leadership has been glaringly missing for years, but since such leaders aren’t coming to the fore, we have to proceed with a course grounded in reality.
It was apalling.
Every once in a while, you see a former beacon of conserv ative clarity swallow the Kool-Aid like this, but it’s always horrifying.
In essence, the mindest is: My principles aren’t worth fighting for.
For a long time, this blog has railed against something we call Reasonable Gentleman Syndrome. Of course, we had as the GOP presidential candidate last year someone afflicted with a terminal case of it.
Since the election, we’ve seen a form of RSG infect several pundits who ought to know better. Some are coming out of it now, having had their original “He’s-our-president-now-so-let’s-pray-that-he-governs-wisely” fit of goodwill ripped savagely to shreds by the reality of who and what TCM is.
What mostly remains now, in the category of Conservatives Perplexingly Abandoning Their Fervor, is that Beltway type that had always spent just a little too much time rubbing shoulders with the enemy at lunches and cocktail parties. Kathleen Parker, in today’s Townhall column, expemplifies this, setting up a moral equivalence between W and TCM based on W’s having said, in 2005, “I earned this political capital, and I’m going to spend it” with regard to his Iraq policy, and TCM’s response to Senator John Kyl last week to consider more conservative-type tax cuts in the “stimulus” bill with “I won. That trumps you.” Well, okay, Kathleen, so there are levels of similarity. Here’s a question for you though: do you think one of those presidents was right and one wrong, or are you just some kind of slightly bemused but mostly disinterested observer? Or there’s Bill Kristol’s last NYT column from the other day, in which he says that conservative ideas have mostly been right, “as much as any theory works in the real world.” Ha ha. I can’t be the only one who detects an odor of resignation in such an utterance.
In her on-air scrap with Bartlett, Ingraham made sure to concede the enormous difficulty of continuing to press for the conservative solution to this country’s economic ills. She then went on to state what ought to be obvious, but apparently is not to the likes of Bartlett: That is of no relevance to the fact that press we must.
All of this has me thinking about the deep implications of the word “fight.”
In her towering work of cultural observation The Death of the Grown-up, Diana West makes the point that in our society we give speeches for and erect monuments to those soldiers, sailors, pilots and Marines who exhibit valor in such situations as rescuing comrades or enduring captivity, but that we have become reluctant to honor them for just plain fighting well, for instances in which it was their fighting per se that made the difference.
I wrote in this blog, and in my newspaper column, after my trip to San Antonio a couple of years ago how affected I was by the story of William B. Travis, who led the militia that fought Santa Ana’s forces at the Alamo. I called my column about it “The Eternal Line in the Dust.” One evening, as the Mexican forces were, according to sentries, about a day away, he called all the men into the Alamo’s main yard, drew a line in the dust with his sword and said, “I can’t make any of you cross this line and join me, and there are understandable reasons why you wouldn’t. We’ll almost certainly all be killed. We will, however, die with honor and the record will show we stood for what was right.”
Much is made of certain of Christ’s teachings along the lines of turning the other cheek, or how the meek are blessed, but it occurs to me that he was actually the ultimate fighter. On that cross that awful Friday afternoon, awash in blood, flies buzzing around his face, the tendons in his hands fraying around the nails under his weight, hearing the mockery of the soldiers and the masses that had been convinced by the forces of evil to give up their good sense and goodness of heart, surrounded by wrong and insanity and chaos and darkness, he did not waver, and he defeated the dark force that prevents this creation from truly being the Father’s kingdom, as he proved the following Sunday morning.
Guys like Bartlett make me want to vomit. Grow a pair, or shut up and go away.
There’s a frequent BN commenter who, lately, has peppered his responses to posts with the phrase, “You lost.” Well, yes, we lost a battle, called the November 08 election, but that merely proves what I’m saying here: We haven’t achieved victory yet, so we must fight.
01.12.09
And now for the important stuff
Otis Redding, backed by Booker T and the MGs, tearing it up on “Try A Little Tenderness.” You’d know that was Steve Cropper on the Strat by his licks even if he weren’t visually recognizable.
01.09.09
“Everything is ready now”
A great Neuhaus piece from 2000 that First Things has reprinted today in its online edition.
12.22.08
He’s nobody’s Reasonable Gentleman
. . . and that’s one of the many reasons why here at BN we love Vice President Cheney.
He and his boss do exude character of a degree that’s rare in Washington, though.
12.21.08
Destiny imposes one of those little sets of parameters
I’ve had something confirmed for me that’s rather a drag to fully let in: I’ve become allergic to dogs.
I love dogs. Had dogs all through my growing-up years, and two of my most beloved family members in my adult years have been dogs. Since the last one passed on, we’ve been a cat household, but I’d figured someday I’d get another canine companion. I guess that won’t be.
Over the past year, I’ve had three or four episodes in which dramatic upheavals of my physical condition were clearly attributable to my having palled around with pooches. About a year ago, Mrs. BN and I went to my sister’s house for a dinner / holiday get-together. My nephew and his wife brought their little terrier, Oscar. We frolicked as we usually do. On the drive home, my eyes swelled nearly shut and tears cascaded down my puffy, blotchy cheeks. In the spring, I dog-sat for a family that went on vacation to Florida. The first day, I went to their house for a get-acquainted session, which involved much climbing on the couch, paws in the lap, licking and such. Within five minutes of leaving, I got the balloon-face syndrome again, this time with a little difficulty in breathing. Got some benadryl at the store and that’s how I made it through the week.
Last night, Mrs. BN and I attended a Christmas party. Great folks, great chow. good drinks, and two black labs with whom I engaged in human-canine fellowship. There was another guitarist there, and we played some music – carols, plus some blues and folk music. While we were playing, I noticed I couldn’t draw a decent breath. Also, again, my face felt all hot and itchy. Not wishing to appear melodramatic, I didn’t say anything at the time, but as we left and walked to our car, I mentioned it to Mrs. BN, told her I could feel my bronchial tubes swelling shut. I let her drive home. She seriously considered taking me to the ER, but I convinced her just to go on home. She let me puff on an inhaler she keps handy for her occasional bouts of athsma, and the relief was instant. I took two benadryls and went to bed.
This morning, while WS was out, she ran into a physician friend of ours and told him of my experience. He told her to have me get to a heallth-care provider first thing tomorrow morning and get tested. He said I’d probably given something I’ll need to keep with me at all times. He firmly told her to convey his admonishment to me that I must do this. He said that otherwise the next encounter could kill me.
Man, if anything can be filed under the category “aw, dang,” it’s the prospect of not making any more dog friends the rest of my life.
12.18.08
Paul Weyrich, R.I.P.
The founder of the Heritage Foundation.
A loss like this is a sad moment, to be sure, but, like WFB’s passing earlier this year, it can be an opportunity for each of us to review, reaffirm and renew our focus on the core pillars of conservatism.
Technology may advance, demographic patterns may shift, and the world may still present surprises, but certain things are always true and right: God, family, free-market economics, unwavering resolve in dealing with enemies, aesthetic expression that ennobles both creator and partaker, and cultivation of personal virtue.
Tonight, we have one less person among us who understands this.
12.04.08
Being caged is a choice
One of my favorite relationships that I have with a magazine is the one I have with Our Brown County. It’s a free monthly publication that can be obtained at stands throughout Nashville, Helmsburg, Story and other notable Brown County towns. Its main intent is to acquaint visitors with the lifestyle, lore and colorful characters that make Brown County life unique.
For our out-of-state readers, Brown County is generally regarded as the most scenic area in Indiana. Its heavily wooded hills were the setting for one of America’s most distinguished artist colonies in the early twentieth century. Landscape oil painters such as T.C. Steele and Marie Goth moved there and found an inexhaustible supply of subject matter.
At this point, Nashville, the county seat, is still home to some serious and distinguished painters. A lot of local atisan / craftspeople display in the galleries and shops. There is, inevitably, some tourist-trap enterprise as part of the mix. Brown County culture is defined to a considerable extent by the food. Fried biscuits and apple butter are a treat not to be missed. There is also a yee-haw element. One of the world’s premier bluegrass festivals takes place in Bean Blossom every summer.
But even such a description as I have offered does a disservice to the actuality of Brown County life. The rewarding thing about my Our Brown County work is that I’m constantly encountering people who fly under life’s radar screen. They’re beyond “colorful.” Where else are you going to find the likes of Jerome Sandserson or Fairy Tale Theater?
My current assignment is to profile a bluegrass band. This afternoon, I went to the home of one of the guitarists. When he met me at the door, he was so bent over he couldn’t look me in the eye. He remained that way as he beckoned me in. When he sat down on the couch, I watched his entire midsection, from his pelvis to his rib cage, move as one solid unit, just plunk down at as comfortable an angle as possible.
My assumption was “car wreck injury.” After he got seated, it didn’t come up in our conversation for quite a while. We had a great exhcange about improvisation and the parallels between bluegrass and jazz, about his family’s roots in the county, the band’s goals.
I believe it was in connection with his mentioning staying home with his small daughter that he came to address his condition. What he has is some kind of disease that turns your body’s cartilege into bone tissue. Your skeleton fuses together. He expects to die within ten years. His rib cage will turn into tightening armor around his heart and lungs.
He’s made a choice. He’s going to live with as much dignity as his situation will permit, do his best to be a growing human being, a good father and an ever more refined musician. To be in his presence is to have the “How-would-I -handle-it” question thrown right in your face.
Then again, how do we do it, anyway? We know not our hour, but we know it will come.
Life went slower this afternoon. There was time- or maybe I just took the time – to scan the details of my cognitive field and home in on what was important, what was really worth paying attention to.
I know there’s a lot that demands our attention these days. It’s all important, some of it downright urgent. Still, cultivate your humanity. Cultivate the ability to recognize humanity. The truly valuable stuff of life can still be had for the small price of our attention.
