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To Celebrate or to Mourn

This is an old blog that I wrote back on May 8, 2011. The context is dated, but its meaning and challenge is equally relevant today, if you consider our country’s current condition of divisiveness. On Monday morning, I turned on the radio to see what was happening in the world and instantly heard the news; Osama Bin Laden was dead. When I first heard the report I had no strong feelings, but simply received the news as fact. It seemed beyond belief that a man has been able to elude the most powerful nation in the world for over a decade. I guess my first thought was, “Well, that puzzle is solved.” It was a curious bit of news, but no more than that. I found myself with mixed emotions, but no strong sense of anything profound. Then I began to hear the coverage…the endless news coverage on the story. The coverage of the celebrations, the analysis of his compound, the details of the secret mission, the possible impact on future safety,…. But what began to strike me most profound...
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Buying Garbage Bags

A couple of times per year, I stumble across this paradox that has always bemused me.  I think I can best describe it with a short narrative… I go to the store to buy some garbage bags. I only need one roll, so I grab a bag and throw it into my cart. The roll is packaged nicely in a plastic bag wrapper so that my garbage bags don’t unroll all over my cart as I head to the checkout line. The cashier scans the code on the package wrapper and my garbage bags remain safely encased in their wrapper until I arrive home. Once I get home, I painstakingly untwist the twist-tie from the package and remove the roll of garbage bags. I gently peel off one bag and align it in my kitchen trash can. Now, here comes the paradox. I find it to be nearly impossible to return the roll of garbage bags into their wrapper, so the very first thing that I do once my trash can is lined is to throw the wrapper into the garbage bag. This is the paradox, the wrapper has been put into the bag; the co...
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The Long Red Fence

Recently, I decided to take a drive out into the country. In my hour-long travel, I had passed many beautiful dairy farms and agricultural fields, but something in the distance caught my eye. As I came closer, I could see that there was a long barbed wire fence running along the field. Now, in and of itself, this is no rare sight on a dairy farm. The unusual thing about this fence was that all of the posts had been painted a bright red color. With my interest now piqued (and in no particular hurry because the pandemic had closed everything down), I pulled off to the side of the road to take a closer look. After parking my car and walking around to the fence, I noticed something even more bizarre. On one side of the fence, the cows seemed to be plump, robust, and in fantastic health. On the other side of the fence, the cows appeared to be completely emaciated and sickly. Having grown up in a dairy region of New York and having spent much time at my grandparents dairy farm, I k...
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The Coyote and the Hare

One day, Coyote was wandering through the desert when he stumbled upon a Hare, largely pregnant with babies and moving very slowly. Hare is trembling in fear, as she knows Coyote to be her mortal enemy. Coyote says, “Come with me. I know a place where you can build a nest and have your babies in safety.” Coyote leads Hare to a peaceful spot and helps to build her a nest in the cool shade of an acacia tree. Hare is always questioning his intent...never fully trusting. She believes that Coyote is waiting for her babies to grow into the perfect smorgasbord meal. “Why are you helping me?”, asks Hare. “I know what it feels like to be alone and afraid.”, Coyote replies. “But you are so powerful and so strong.” “Yes, but I have enemies too. I just want to help.” Hare remains wary, as Coyote is known to be wiley and deceitful. Days go by and the babies are born, strong and healthy. Coyote prowls the night watching out for the family...but Hare is always wondering, fearing. One night,...
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The Sound of Silence

I love the NPR show Hidden Brain hosted by Shankar Vedantam. Shankar describes his show as, “using science and storytelling to reveal the unconscious patterns that drive human behavior, shape our choices and direct our relationships.” Recently, he did an episode entitled “ The Founding Contradiction: Thomas Jefferson's Stance On Slavery ” (Follow this link to listen to the entire episode from June 29, 2020). In this episode, he interviews the historian Annette Gordon-Reed who has studied the life of Thomas Jefferson and the seeming contradiction between his written words and his life practices. At the end of the episode, Shankar has the following interaction with Annette… VEDANTAM: I'm wondering, do you ever think about Jefferson's life and the contradictions he embodies and think about your own life and perhaps the contradictions that you might embody yourself, that, you know, 200 years from now, people are going to look back and say, how could she possibly not see ...
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We Can Not Wait..!

I actually wrote this a week or so before Mr. George Floyd was murdered. These thoughts and questions are no more relevant today than they were a week before this heinous crime. We are simply more aware of them... We can not wait...We can not be silent..! On 31 March 1968, while speaking at the National Cathedral in Washington, D.C., the great Martin Luther King, Jr. said, “It may well be that we will have to repent in this generation. Not merely for the vitriolic words and  the violent actions of the bad people, but for the appalling silence and indifference of the good  people who sit around and say, "Wait on time.”” But what can we do…What can we say..? Earlier in 1963, as Dr. King prepared for the Birmingham Campaign , he drafted the final sermons for Strength to Love. In this work he stated, “Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that.  Hate cannot drive out hate;   only love  can do that.”. What is “love”..? ...
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Playing the Trickster

Within the mythology of nearly all cultures there exists this whimsical character known by such names as Hermes, Coyote, and Mercury, but always playing the role of the Trickster. In his book “Trickster Makes this World”, Lewis Hyde speaks of Trickster as: They are the lords of the in between. A trickster does not live near the hearth; he does not live in the halls of justice, the soldier’s tent, the shamans hut, the monastery. He passes through each of these when there is a moment of silence and he enlivens each with mischief, but he is not their guiding spirit. He is the spirit of the doorway leading out, and the crossroad at the edge of town (the one where a little market springs up). He is the spirit of the road at dusk, the one that runs from one town to another but belongs to neither. In short, trickster is a boundary-crosser. Every group has its edge, its sense of in and out, and tricksters are always there, at the gates of the city and at the gates of life, making sure ther...
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