—by ELIZABETH DODSON GRAY
The politics intensify and the clamor of campaigning grows louder as we head toward November 2nd. Where do we turn for sanity?
And as the news of home invasion murders and the Rutgers suicide from cyber-bullying fill our newspapers and television news, where do we go for a glimpse of goodness and normalcy?
It reminds me of the Kingston Trio song of yesteryear, "They’re rioting in Africa,/ They’re starving in Spain,/ There’s hurricanes in Florida,/ And Texas needs rain./ The whole world is festering. . . ."
Jon Stewart got it right on Comedy Central. "Where do we go for sanity?"
As summer turns to autumn, you could think that the only thing happening is politics and campaigning.
But look around you. What is really, REALLY happening is that the natural seasons are TURNING on their deeply habitual but daily spontaneous way from warm to cold temperatures, from green leaves to gloriously multicolor splendor spread out on the trees we scarcely notice when they are green.
In a world becoming more uncertain each year with earthquakes, floods, tornadoes, hurricanes and other EXTREME weather (which used to be unusual but has now become commonplace), there is still SOMETHING regular and steady and "normal" and "good" in our lives. It is our human context WITHIN the natural world of our planet’s biospheral cycles.
We are ENCIRCLED by the steadiness and the goodness of nature, made vivid even to our "unseeing" eyes, by the turning of the seasons.
No matter who gets elected, no matter who- kills-who in international wars and drive-by shootings, the sun will still rise. And the day will begin. And the season will turn from summer to autumn. And we will be blessed by the abundance of the earth UNTIL in our infinite human hubris and our blind technologies, we figure out a way to kill the planet!
But until then, open your eyes and open up your soul, to rejoice in the wonder and the blessing of the turning of the seasons. The natural seasons may possess the sanity and the solace we all need.
The politics intensify and the clamor of campaigning grows louder as we head toward November 2nd. Where do we turn for sanity?
And as the news of home invasion murders and the Rutgers suicide from cyber-bullying fill our newspapers and television news, where do we go for a glimpse of goodness and normalcy?
It reminds me of the Kingston Trio song of yesteryear, "They’re rioting in Africa,/ They’re starving in Spain,/ There’s hurricanes in Florida,/ And Texas needs rain./ The whole world is festering. . . ."
Jon Stewart got it right on Comedy Central. "Where do we go for sanity?"
As summer turns to autumn, you could think that the only thing happening is politics and campaigning.
But look around you. What is really, REALLY happening is that the natural seasons are TURNING on their deeply habitual but daily spontaneous way from warm to cold temperatures, from green leaves to gloriously multicolor splendor spread out on the trees we scarcely notice when they are green.
In a world becoming more uncertain each year with earthquakes, floods, tornadoes, hurricanes and other EXTREME weather (which used to be unusual but has now become commonplace), there is still SOMETHING regular and steady and "normal" and "good" in our lives. It is our human context WITHIN the natural world of our planet’s biospheral cycles.
We are ENCIRCLED by the steadiness and the goodness of nature, made vivid even to our "unseeing" eyes, by the turning of the seasons.
No matter who gets elected, no matter who- kills-who in international wars and drive-by shootings, the sun will still rise. And the day will begin. And the season will turn from summer to autumn. And we will be blessed by the abundance of the earth UNTIL in our infinite human hubris and our blind technologies, we figure out a way to kill the planet!
But until then, open your eyes and open up your soul, to rejoice in the wonder and the blessing of the turning of the seasons. The natural seasons may possess the sanity and the solace we all need.
—Elizabeth Dodson Gray
I'm keeping my sanity just fine, thank you - while a lot of people around me seem to be enjoying letting go of theirs. Wouldn't it be nice if we ONLY had 4 or 6 weeks of "camPAINing"? It does my heart good to see Rahm Emanuel decided to campaign for Mayor of Chicago for just one month - watch his video clip!
ReplyDeleteI love poetry and Liz, your writing is very poetic. Yes, each year I watch with pleasure and wonder and I rejoice "in the turning of the seasons." I'm still amused about an incident that happened maybe 30 years ago. Tthe clerk of a little drive-by store in a southern state, where it is so hot there are no real trees, asked "where, oh where did you get those beautiful, beautiful logs?" She was talking about our left-over camfire wood strapped on top of our car. She offered to buy a couple of logs from us for her fireplace but we gave them to her.
I love nature and dry birch logs as much as the next sane nature lover. However, in order to keep my sanity, I must refuse to become sheeple and be misled to pleasantly wander towards more or less imminent Armageddon (Revelations 16:16). Hasn't anybody else (besides me) noticed that now there is more than one Christian Protestant denomination that openly claims that only THEIR flock will go to heaven?
World news ( including photos of posters "FREEDOM GO TO HELL"...."EUROPE YOU WILL PAY. YOUR 9/11 IS ON IT'S WAY!!" ..."...YOUR EXTERMINATION IS ON ITS WAY"... "BE PREPARED FOR THE REAL HOLOCAUST" ..."Europe is the CANCER ISLAM is the answer" and others)
is on the WWWeb, if one cares to look. Some Muslims in England have been clamoring for Sharia courts for divorces for some years now. It is sad that the moderate Muslims are so complacent that they haven't roused themselves to counter such situations and reform themselves from within, yet.
to me cont'd in next post:.
----Andi Kadisevskis
cont'd:The other day I heard someone on TV say :
ReplyDelete"hate is delicious.. it is an addictive emotion,"
I think it is sad that now there is even a U.S.Army, retired, General who is actively hate-mongering. Retired General Boykin, a born-again-Christian, has an interesting history. He served 36 years in the Army and was in charge of our troops in Mogadishu - I remember the atrocious humiliation and physical pain that was inflicted on our troops there. Boykin also was Atty Gen. Jamet Reno's advisor during the Waco debacle.... I think it is a good sign that his wife divorced him for being "too religious" but I am sad that the physicist Stephen Hawking's wife, the mother of his children, did the same for the opposite reason - for his refusing to become a Christian.
Science is based on logic, religion is based on belief. To believe everything one hears or reads is to voluntarily suspend critical thinking.
I think it is too bad that here in these United States, anybody, even a certifiably crazy person, is free to start a new sect or cult.
There are many unter/uber-Christian missionaries who'd love to take over the United States and the world too. Some have already started provocations here: "Thank God for Dead Soldiers"... "homosexuality is an abomonation...a sin... a social construct...a psychic disorder... Let's burn the Koran..." the King James Bible burnings that didn't attract much media attention....
They are infiltritating our school boards, getting elected to public offices. They are graduating from fundamentalist University law schools - a lot of whose graduates already work in government. They are planning to take over our government from within. Christine O'Donnell ( I wonder what college she attended!!!) is one of several who might get elected to the Senate. She thinks evolution is a myth because a monkey doesn't grow up into a man. It is that kind of "thinking" that has legally given corporations the rights of individual persons - without an individual's duties and responsibilities to society - and without limiting what a corporation can do to what an individual human person could accomplish.
Yes, let us enjoy nature and not give up clear sight and logical thought.
BTW I have surprised several missionaries by stating that in the event that someone should come along and prove that Jesus never lived, that Christ is a myth, I will remain a Christian because I believe his teaching, the message, is what is important to me.
We are a triune being - let us keep our physical, mental and emotional balance!
Yes! thanks so much for the reminder to enjoy the beauties all around us, Liz.
ReplyDelete