-Archbishop Desmond Tutu, No Future without Forgiveness

"See No Evil"

No one expected all three of them
to sit there on their tree stumps forever,
their senses covered with their sinuous paws
so as to shut out the vile, nefarious world.

As it happened,
it was the one on the left
who was the first to desert his post,
uncupping his ears,
then loping off into the orbit of rumors and lies,
but also into the realm of symphonies,
the sound of water tumbling over rocks
and wind stirring the leafy domes of trees.

Then the monkey on the right lowered his hands
from his wide mouth and slipped away
in search of someone he could talk to,
some news he could spread,
maybe something to curse or shout about.

And that left the monkey in the middle
alone with his silent vigil,
shielding his eyes from depravity's spectacle,
blind to the man whipping his horse,
the woman shaking her baby in the air,
but also unable to see
the russet sun on a rough shelf of rock
and apples in the grass at the base of a tree.

Sometimes, he wonders about the other two,
listens for the faint sounds of their breathing
up there on the mantel
alongside the clock and the candlesticks.

And some nights in the quiet house
he wishes he could break the silence with a question,

but he knows the one on his right
will not be able to hear,
and the one to his left,
according to their sacred oath--
the one they all took with one paw raised--
is forbidden forever to speak, even in reply.

-- Billy Collins

From The Trouble with Poetry: And Other Poems. Random House, 2005.

Christians, as all U.S. citizens, are free to vote for the candidate they feel will best serve as President, whether this be Sen. Obama or Sen. McCain; Minnesotans, as all U.S. citizens, are free to vote for the candidate they feel will best serve as President, whether this be Sen. Obama or Sen. McCain. But, please, do not assume that all Christians vote Republican or that all Minnesotans think Barack Obama is anything other than a U.S. citizen, a member of Congress, and a candidate for the Presidency of the United States of America.

No real introduction is necessary.

Well, you wonder why I always dress in black,
Why you never see bright colors on my back,
And why does my appearance seem to have a somber tone.
Well, there's a reason for the things that I have on.

I wear the black for the poor and the beaten down,
Livin' in the hopeless, hungry side of town,
I wear it for the prisoner who has long paid for his crime,
But is there because he's a victim of the times.

I wear the black for those who never read,
Or listened to the words that Jesus said,
About the road to happiness through love and charity,
Why, you'd think He's talking straight to you and me.

Well, we're doin' mighty fine, I do suppose,
In our streak of lightnin' cars and fancy clothes,
But just so we're reminded of the ones who are held back,
Up front there ought 'a be a Man In Black.

I wear it for the sick and lonely old,
For the reckless ones whose bad trip left them cold,
I wear the black in mournin' for the lives that could have been,
Each week we lose a hundred fine young men.

And, I wear it for the thousands who have died,
Believin' that the Lord was on their side,
I wear it for another hundred thousand who have died,
Believin' that we all were on their side.

Well, there's things that never will be right I know,
And things need changin' everywhere you go,
But 'til we start to make a move to make a few things right,
You'll never see me wear a suit of white.

Ah, I'd love to wear a rainbow every day,
And tell the world that everything's OK,
But I'll try to carry off a little darkness on my back,
'Til things are brighter, I'm the Man In Black.

-Johnny Cash

For me, autumn also has its own soundtrack; and, yes, I am fully aware of how odd that fact is. Not surprisingly the main score is that of George Winston's Autumn: the clean, melodic accompaniment to numerous hours of reading and schoolwork. (One close friend still has the Pavlovian response to crack the textbooks whenever he hears George Winston's piano playing.) But another album that holds an equally strong association with autumn is the Greatest Hits of James Taylor. I am not entirely sure what in this record---especially those first six songs---represents autumn with such power. It may be because the first time I heard it was the fall of my freshman year at college. Or it could be that the contemplative, sad nature of the lyrics in "Fire and Rain" and "Sweet Baby James" invoke a feeling of slowing down after the crazy summer rush. I don't know; and I probably never will know. All I am certain of is the ability for these songs to simultaneously send me to the past while firmly rooting me in the present; not many things can perform such a feat.

"We have done our part to expose Obama through our support of 'Operation Chaos,' effectively using the Clinton campaign as our foil, and Obama and the Democrat Party are the weaker for it," he said. "Every objective has been met and surpassed."

Maybe it was his use of the word "foil" but I immediately had a picture in my mind of Rush as Iago. Of course, the association entirely breaks down because I don't think either Obama or Clinton would acknowledge Limbaugh as a best friend and advisor, but for a moment I had a good chuckle.

In the first paragraph of his column about why we should stop mocking the seventies, Michael Chabon (one of my favorite authors), mentions a particular episode of WNYC's Radio Lab "devoted to contemplating the romance and the grim realities of space travel." Radio Lab, thanks to the introduction by Mr. Anderson, has become one of my favorite NPR programs. Then, a page later, Chabon references a recent issue of The Believer, one of my favorite eclectic literary 'zines.

This all resulted in a smile on my face, which continued when one of Chabon's insights reminded me not to take myself so seriously:

Each of us serves, if we are conducting our lives in the usual fashion, as a constant source of embarrassment to his or her future self, and by the same formula all "eras" can be made to look ridiculous in retrospect.

So... I'll approach tomorrow with the attitude that I'm simply providing my future 50-year-old self with some good material for humor or, at the very least, embarrassment.

The main reason I have given this so much thought recently is because of a song that won't stop haunting me. It is one of those songs that is unbearably beautiful both lyrically and musically. The refrain goes: �In the cathedrals of New York and Rome / There is a feeling that you should just go home / And spend a lifetime finding out just where that is�. I believe what is especially haunting for me is two-fold. First, as a self-proclaimed homebody, I have never seen the cathedrals of New York and Rome. So many wonders of the world have been brought to me only by images, not by experience. And second, "home� may very well be something even more intangible than where my books are. Home may be wherever I'm at, with or without my books, and it may take a lifetime to truly learn that.

I remember in college how I felt, at some level, that I was never at home. When I was on my college campus in Chicago, I would talk about �home� as being Minneapolis, where I grew up and where my parents lived. When I was in Minneapolis, on school breaks, I would talk about �home� as being Chicago and my college campus. I think that was the beginning of a realization that my longing for a place to call home would always trump a physical location labeled as �home�. My parents have since moved on and I love visiting them in their saltbox house in Door County, but it isn't my home. I love my apartment and enjoy returning to it everyday after work, but even in such a place that is very �me� and full of my stuff and a wonderful place to read, play, and relax, it doesn't feel completely like home.

A different song by a group I especially liked in college, has a song that describes a God-shaped hole that is in all of us and can only truly be filled by God. Maybe �home� is just that for me�a hole within that only serves to remind me that I never will be entirely complete this side of heaven. I don't know. Maybe my longing for a place to call home is just another lesson teaching me to be content with where I am at, but to also remain perpetually hopeful for more.

Jeremy: Halfway around the world, a lone man has accomplished an extraordinary athletic feat.
Dan: What?
Jeremy: I don't know.

Sports Night, Season 1: Episode 21

CNN.com article, 9/24/07: "India claim thrilling Twenty20 win"

After reading that article, I very much understand what Jeremy is saying. Someday I hope to understand cricket.