Events both inner and outer: how’s it going?
For the past few months not only has a lot of the news been extremely depressing, but it’s been appearing on so many fronts that I have at least thirty stories to choose from each day for my blog posts. I’m not superwoman and just can’t cover them all, so I pick the ones that either interest me the most or on which I think I have the most interesting things to say, and I leave it at that.
But the residue of all the bad news sticks to me, to a certain extent, even though I try to shed it. And then of course there are personal matters: trying to work on Gerard’s book launch (which seems to involve a thousand surprisingly time-consuming tasks), planning a summer trip out west that should end up being fun but requires juggling the schedules of many people (another surprisingly time-consuming – and frustrating – task), and of course the continual absence of Gerard now that over a year has passed.
If only the news of the world were better. For now we see through a glass, darkly, and so I try to be optimistic. I certainly realize I can’t see the future, and it might be better – even much better – than it looks now. However:
No man is an island,
Entire of itself; …
And therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls;
It tolls for thee.
Turning and turning in the widening gyre
The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.
Ah, love, let us be true
To one another! for the world, which seems
To lie before us like a land of dreams,
So various, so beautiful, so new,
Hath really neither joy, nor love, nor light,
Nor certitude, nor peace, nor help for pain;
And we are here as on a darkling plain
Swept with confused alarms of struggle and flight,
Where ignorant armies clash by night.
Some say the world will end in fire,
Some say in ice.
From what I’ve tasted of desire
I hold with those who favor fire.
But if it had to perish twice,
I think I know enough of hate
To say that for destruction ice
Is also great
And would suffice.
That last poem, by Robert Frost, is especially laconic and deceptively simple – almost like a child’s nursery rhyme. But it says a great deal.
All of the poems convey a sense of foreboding, and it’s hard not to feel that sort of dread today. I don’t think that emotion is the province of one side or another; from what I can see among the people I know, it’s shared by both, although exactly what they dread and their idea of the mechanism by which it could and perhaps will occur is quite different.
And yet, spring is here. I took this photo a few days ago near where I live. What’s unusual about it isn’t apparent in the photo, but it was a bunch of teeny miniature daffodils that had apparently seeded themselves in an area where nothing had been cultivated or purposely planted. They were just standing there alone, a real surprise:
Yes. Dark times.
Those miniature daffodils springing up untended are a sign of hope. And hope made me think of Thomas Hardy’s “The Darkling Thrush”:
I leant upon a coppice gate
When Frost was spectre-grey,
And Winter’s dregs made desolate
The weakening eye of day.
The tangled bine-stems scored the sky
Like strings of broken lyres,
And all mankind that haunted nigh
Had sought their household fires.
The land’s sharp features seemed to be
The Century’s corpse outleant,
His crypt the cloudy canopy,
The wind his death-lament.
The ancient pulse of germ and birth
Was shrunken hard and dry,
And every spirit upon earth
Seemed fervourless as I.
At once a voice arose among
The bleak twigs overhead
In a full-hearted evensong
Of joy illimited;
An aged thrush, frail, gaunt, and small,
In blast-beruffled plume,
Had chosen thus to fling his soul
Upon the growing gloom.
So little cause for carolings
Of such ecstatic sound
Was written on terrestrial things
Afar or nigh around,
That I could think there trembled through
His happy good-night air
Some blessed Hope, whereof he knew
And I was unaware.
Frost picked up where Hardy left off several decades later, in “Come In:”
As I came to the edge of the woods,
Thrush music — hark!
Now if it was dusk outside,
Inside it was dark.
Too dark in the woods for a bird
By sleight of wing
To better its perch for the night,
Though it still could sing.
The last of the light of the sun
That had died in the west
Still lived for one song more
In a thrush’s breast.
Far in the pillared dark
Thrush music went —
Almost like a call to come in
To the dark and lament.
But no, I was out for stars;
I would not come in.
I meant not even if asked;
And I hadn’t been.
“Far in the pillared dark/Thrush music went…” All of New England is in that line. Mid- to late September, I’d say. After the evenings have gotten chilly but while there are still leaves on the trees.
Such are the ‘sweet and sour fruits of the tree of life’.
60s & 70s were a wild time — wonder what people in their 60s > 70s > 80s & 90s thought of those times whilst going thru them… 😉
Hubert:
What a great poet Frost was. Also a brilliant thinker.
Karmi:
They were indeed wild. My own take on that era can be found here, for example.
I spent the 60s in medical school and surgery residency. I was president of the student body in my senior year and had a meeting with the Dean about the LSD problem in the second year class. That was 1964 and some of those students never graduated. Why they thought drugs were more important I never understood.
The craziness out there is getting way above our heads, probably on purpose.
You can’t write about everything so pick what’s your heart is on the most.
Neo – ‘I didn’t much care for the 60s even at the time.‘
I loved the 60s & 70s. Thought I was a liberal – even tho never registered to vote until 2002. Was probably a ‘Closet Conservative‘ during those times, but just didn’t realize it.
Wild Times – ‘They’re Back!‘ ‘n I’ll be 80 in a couple of years…
Dover Beach by Matthew Arnold is one of my all-time favorites.
Daffodils are a sign of human effort, because they don’t seed themselves. Someone planted those miniature daffodils, and you then had a chance to enjoy them.
Because they are small ones, I’ll bet that whoever planted them received them in a pot as a gift and then planted them outside.
Daffodils of any size are favorites of mine!
Gardening is a good distraction. I have a number of plants I started from seed in small pots I need to get into the ground. Squash, Zucchini, tomatoes, egg plants and cucumbers. Well, the cucumbers and egg plants can wait a while.
And of course music.
That phrase about seeing thru a glass darkly is from James in the New Testament. It was actually comparing our limited human knowledge to an ancient mirror – perhaps brass -as I recall, not the very good ones we have now.
Correction . From 1st Corinthians, not James
1Corinthians 13:12
https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=1%20Corinthians%2013&version=KJV
You have my sympathy for both your personal loss and the explosion of virulent antisemitism. I am very discouraged about the future of our republic. But Neo, your purposeful talent is needed more than ever.
One of the great exhortations by the Apostle Paul. 1 Corinthians 13.
The ESV translates “through a glass darkly” as “in a mirror dimly”.
Paul continues “Pursue love”, but desire to prophesy, which is to teach, adding “the one who prophesies speaks to people for their upbuilding and encouragement and consolation,” which is an outward manifestation of love.
I, at times am overwhelmed at how the world seems to be descending under a veil of evil to its destruction. As a Christian, I understand the “perfect will come” and we will see Jesus, whose example of Love by providing our path back to God, will set things right.
An easy nutshell summary of the situation: There are no redeeming qualities to the Team Joe administration. They are dead wrong on everything, aggressively malignant, illegitimate, and hell bent on destroying their host country.
Fortunately, most of us are not burdened by responsibility for the existence of the scourge, and few of us support any of Team Joe’s policies, which makes me carefree as a bird in springtime. Carefree I say!
And a happy Passover to all!
A quick search of the internet reveals that Daffodils can indeed spread via seeding. Having found daffodils on our three acres in some remote locations from our purposeful plantings I can attest to this. I suspect they also get spread by some ground dwelling critters such as chipmunks.
Do hope all celebrating Passover have a wonderful time
Oh well. We’ll always have Peggy Lee.
==
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jGCd2txXiyQ
Saul of Tarsus was an “Apostle”?! Must be a ‘Pauline‘ Christianity sect invention.
Saul/Paul was a Roman citizen with the full power of the Roman Empire behind him – including scribes.
Alan F:
Thank you very much.
Bad couple of days for me. Yesterday, on a cold and gloomy Sunday, we said goodbye to our Anglican priest, who has led our parish for 22 years. He’s retiring, not dead, thank goodness, but he’s gone two hours away. Today, I had a last visit in the hospital with a friend, also of 22 years, who is now actively dying. I think she knew me, for a moment, anyhow.
So glad to have another Peggy Lee fan. She’s great.
Very sorry to hear Kate.
It’s dark times but that is the way of the world. I don’t believe you can expect anything different. My faith is it for me, and, I have seen it bourne out again and again that power, money and control are constants, only the mask changes. Yet I feel serene.
I sure have the disconcerting feeling that things are happening too fast, there are too many balls in the air, too many wars and rumors of wars, the government lies to us, we are polarized to a frightening degree, and our leaders aren’t competent or have more interest in their personal goals than the public good.
It’s much like the 60s.
Back to Peggy Lee (just watched the video), she’s on that short list of artists who just make singing look so easy, as if they’re just speaking into a microphone and greatness is coming out. Liza Minnelli is another. I have to think they think, “Why can’t everyone do this?”
Despite the excellent ending, I don’t see how anyone can take Dover Beach seriously. The poem flat-out says “This is all BS, but let’s pretend.” That’s a self destroying position.
Karmi, yes Paul was an apostle. As he had previously been persecuting Christians prior to his conversion on the road to Damascus, the apostles were skeptical, but after meeting with them, his conversion and his miraculous episode with Jesus were accepted.
Eeyore:
I strongly disagree. I see nothing there about pretending anything. I see Arnold being depressed about what’s going on on the macro level in the wider world, and saying that it is still highly important in the face of that for the lovers to maintain love and devotion on the personal, one-on-one level.
}}} I’m not superwoman and just can’t cover them all, so I pick the ones that either interest me the most or on which I think I have the most interesting things to say, and I leave it at that.
Take it easy, Neo… we’re happy with anything we get. 😉
I sympathize with your bleakness, and things can look dark for me, too. Personally. Torn Achilles Tendon sort of healed, can walk with some not-quite-pain, don’t expect to ever be able to really run again. Back constantly in pain. Knee not quite right. 5 months without karaoke – tho went twice in April now.
Yet wife of 32 years is fine, I’m zooming a bit more with US high school & college friends. My son & his wife & 2 kids are visiting, with my daughter & her husband also here over the weekend for one of Granmpa Tom’s duck feast with lots of extra duck breast. 3 little grandkids, with future’s ahead of them.
Despite the Slovaks recently voting for less support for Ukraine, and mostly ignoring Israel (and bad Holocaust memories that most would prefer to forget). I do think life will be better for my kids than it was for me, and better for grandkids.
There is some deep meaning in that. Tho poetry remains less emotional than singing, for me.
Let me again give sincere thanks, Neo, for all the fine work you put into these comment. I continue to believe you’re the most Truthful blogger on the internet, tho I no longer have the time to read all the fine comments as I’ve been able to do in times past.
You’re actually doing a fantastic job.
Yes, we’re going through another cycle of craziness just as we did in the 60/70s. Through most of the 60s I was in the Navy training for, and then fighting a war. The unrest of those years could, IMO, be traced back to Marxist activism fomented by Soviet propaganda and leftist professors who had begun taking over in academia. Much of our unrest today comes from the same source. Only it’s much bigger and better financed.
I had a front row seat to a lot of things. Did a stint in Vietnam and was a recruiter on college campuses where we were picketed/protested by students at Cal Berkely, San Jose State, San Francisco State, and several other schools.
From 1968 on I was an airline pilot and flew into cities where riots were happening, and major fires were being set. Flew over Baltimore as it was in flames, as well as Los Angeles. Laid over in a hotel in D.C. where the lobby was protected by a cop with a German Shepherd and a machine gun. It was a bit like being Forrest Gump. I witnessed a lot of stories that were on the nightly news.
It made me take inventory of my beliefs. Were these ant-war protestors and black liberation activists right? Was the U.S. a racist, imperialistic country? Was capitalism an evil system? I examined those and many other issues. In the end I believed I was on the right side and kept on keeping on.
When Reagan was elected, it gave me new hope. He did a lot, but the Marxists laid low and continued to build their organizations. And now they’re back.
As Frost said:
“The woods are lovely, dark and deep,
But I have promises to keep,
And miles to go before I sleep,
And miles to go before I sleep.”
Keep the faith.
I guess most people don’t realize that Learning French is The Answer. 🙂
As much as I worried about the fashionable things one worried about in the 60s-90s, which mostly didn’t happen, I feel we are now in a whole new ball game.
I have no idea what is coming and I have no idea what to do even if I did know.
It bothers me. But I’ve got eight more pages of French to read before I sleep.
neo on April 22, 2024 at 7:28 pm said:
Eeyore:
I strongly disagree. I see nothing there about pretending anything. I see Arnold being depressed about what’s going on on the macro level in the wider world, and saying that it is still highly important in the face of that for the lovers to maintain love and devotion on the personal, one-on-one level.
________
You aren’t reading it closely enough. Arnold is quite clearly stating the pure reductionist materialist position.
“the world, which seems
To lie before us like a land of dreams,
So various, so beautiful, so new,
Hath really neither joy, nor love, nor light,
Nor certitude, nor peace, nor help for pain;”
It’s all an illusion. But we’ll pretend to be true (which we cannot be) to each other (which we really aren’t). As a Victorian, he could sentimentalize away what he was actually saying. But that is what it really comes to.
I should think that anyone who doesn’t feel a bit bleak just isn’t paying attention.
There is so much to be concerned about on the grand scale. Our Justice system is riddled with corruption. Our basic electoral process is compromised.
But, on a basic level, crudeness is no longer only an expression of ignorance only. It seems to be the order of the day among the so called sophisticated.
And of course among a growing swath of society, respect for basic laws and common courtesy are simply evaporating.
My wife accuses me of not liking anything. She is not too far off. I am ambivalent about the human race generally, although I do like most of those I interact with on a personal level. If that makes any sense.
A comment on the 60s and 70s. Very strange times for a Naval Aviator, among others. So many in various uniforms went from generally respected “champions of freedom” to a despised class over the course of a few short years, simply by dutifully following the orders of the Nation’s duly elected leadership. It seems as though Vietnam exposed a strong undercurrent of antipathy for democracy, capitalism and the United States among certain classes–mostly elites, or elite wannabes. (Strange since the poster boy of the elites, JFK, initiated our involvement in that conflict; although LBJ stumbled into mismanaging it) At any rate, the effectiveness of civil disobedience, aka lawlessness, was demonstrated, especially when practiced as part of a mob. Unfortunately, many of the practitioners went on to college classrooms (where else could anti-democrats find a home?) where they taught their contempt for law and society to future generations. The current generation doesn’t know much, but they have been well indoctrinated that civil disobedience validates your elitist bonafides without consequences; unless you challenge the current power structure. Since the current power structure more closely resembles the anti-democratic model preferred by the 60’s/70’s radicals, challenging it can be risky.
Eeyore:
I’m reading it closely. He is talking about the external world that lies before them – not the internal interpersonal world. They must rely on each other.
huxley:
Or, as Frost would say, you have promises to keep:
Yes, the Apostle Paul,
Wrote a significant amount of the New Testament. One of the main persons in Luke’s “Acts of the Apostles” aka just “Acts”.
Considered an Apostle by the Roman Catholic Church, the Orthodox Church , The Protestant and Evangelical Churches.
You will find that the Roman Catholics seem to talk more of Peter than Paul and among many Evangelicals, just the opposite is true.
I fing a lot of solace in both Christian Music and church on Sunday.
Such are the ‘sweet and sour fruits of the tree of life’.
Seems like a lot of older folks on this blog – I may be a young one @ 78.
I tried to make a point earlier, with a ‘handicap‘ of poor communication skills, but seems it came across differently than I had meant. No computers & smart phones during during the Wild Times of the 60s & 70s.
What were the people who were old folks back then—those who were 60-90+—thinking of the 60s & 70s? Was it sorta like we’re feeling here—during 2024?
Anyway, every year seems to get better – personally, for me – though 2020 was stressful for me. Was so sure that Trump would win, that I was shocked at his loss. Got over that, and then 2022 midterms rolled around with talk ‘n rumors of a Republican wave for the Senate & House. Ditto on being shocked again at those election results. 🙂 Politics…
Back when the Watergate scandal (1972 to 1974?) was happening, and me thinking I was a ‘Liberal‘ – packed up a dog & a wife (2nd) in 1973, and took a long trip in the new pickup to see the mountains ‘n such whilst stopping @ remote tent type of campgrounds. Don’t recall where or what I was doing on August 8/9, 1974, but I missed Nixon’s speech & resigning.
What were Republicans going thru during those years…Politics, Jeez!
I was about to agree with Oldflyer…
“I should think that anyone who doesn’t feel a bit bleak just isn’t paying attention.”
But then I remembered that I’m spending 3 weeks with my 94 year old mother and all of my daughters and son-in-law and sister and her kids et al … catching up with friends I haven’t seen in years and being loved with unrestricted grace…
I’m never an optimist but always hopeful. In the end… either God’s got this or I go down swinging. So… I’m paying attention but reject bleakness. I’m sad at what our generations are forfeiting but hopeful that there are more of us than there are of them. (2 Kings 6:16-18)
At times I have concern for the toll you go through. I don’t awake at 2AM screaming but it occurs to me now and again. That’s one reason I toss up silly-assed things. For no more than enjoyment.
In that vein and because it’s spring here again, three Ozark Haykoos (probably a repeat of one or more):
Tiny feet patter, then stop.
Orange orbs hang in blackness.
Road-kill opossum heralds spring.
Fiery reds and oranges strike my eyes,
Pink pinwheels across a light blue morning.
Kelly’s ol’ still finally blew.
The hands spin slowly, telling time.
You cannot share that which is another’s.
Took me three to five to learn that one.
Have a good night’s sleep, neo.
Oligonicella:
Thanks; that’s very kind of you.
Neo: Frost, Wilbur, and Larkin are my favorites. Used to know a lot of their things by memory. No longer. The little grey cells, they are tired.
A previous thread on Frost as a political thinker touched on William H. Pritchard (retired professor of English at Amherst College, where Frost taught off and on in the 1920s-1930s) and literary criticism. Some of the best early essays on Frost are in Randall Jarrell’s “Poetry and the Age” (1953). Jarrell saw past Frost’s New England Sage act to the tough-minded seriousness that lay behind it.
My sympathies on the effect of public and private travail. Faith is a consolation for many; art, nature, and good memories help me. And the knowledge that this country and the world have been through worse times.
Ah! Where have the years gone? Gonna be 84 next month. Memories harsh, sweet, hateful, loving, regretful, joyful. Mis-spent youth (for Real) Life only really began in the 70’s as my head found itself and love arrived. 47 years ago I vowed to love, cherish, and care for in sickness and in health, for better or worse until death do us part. I meant it then.
Now dementia/alzheimer’s has joined us. I still mean it and will until. . . .the parting. Sometimes she doesn’t know who I am But I always know who she is. Love is not obligatory nor a conscious choice, tho’ occasionally painful. She straightened me out with God’s help. I thank them both.
Wishing y’all happiness, long life, and easy leaving. I miss Gerard but Neo and
her commenters do a fine job of filling the void
Charlz:
I’m so sorry you and your wife are dealing with Alzheimer’s, but I’m glad that you both were blessed with all those good years before that.
Oldflyer,
Good comment, I agree. Strange how closely today resembles the 60s & 70s!
Jon baker “I find a lot of solace in both Christian Music and church on Sunday.” Yes, good music in church is awesome!
And yet….
“There lives the dearest freshness deep down things;
And though the last lights off the black West went
Oh, morning, at the brown brink eastward, springs—
Because the Holy Ghost over the bent
World broods with warm breast and with ah! bright wings.”