0903

September 3, 2022

In bed before 10, awake at 5, 6 pss, no vino.  Up at 5:15, thinking of Steve arriving today from LAX via ORD on his mission of mercy to accompany his Dad from one elegant elderly warehouse near his sister to another near his daughter, 650 miles away 'as the crow flies,' 800 miles by car.  I've been rather dreading this day, or departure day really 2 days hence.  I identify more with Jimmy now, the eldest of our generation than with his children and I know that, although 'he is OK' with the move (though he persists in thinking it is to California), he would rather not move away from Geri who has been his Guardian Angel for going on 4 years now.  She visited with him yesterday at Newcastle for an hour or so and he admitted he didn't want to move and that he would miss her.  We can only hope that the radical change of scene, of helping staff and medical personnel, of neighbors, of new room's location in a new building - that all of it won't throw him for a loop.  And I'm dreading the airport and aircraft experiences, with his indwelling catheter and his general confusion.  How will he deal with the busy airport restrooms, which he will almost undoubtedly want to visit?  I know that this transfer to Katherine and Jordan's care will provide relief to Geri and I'm grateful for that relief but, as I say, I identify with Jimmy now, my friend and fellow octogenarian living in a world of assisted living and . . . .

Spring and Fall

Gerard Manley Hopkins - 1844-1889

Márgarét, áre you gríeving

Over Goldengrove unleaving?

Leáves, like the things of man, you

With your fresh thoughts care for, can you?

Ah! ás the heart grows older

It will come to such sights colder

By and by, nor spare a sigh

Though worlds of wanwood leafmeal lie;

And yet you will weep and know why.

Now no matter, child, the name:

Sórrow's spríngs áre the same.

Nor mouth had, no nor mind, expressed

What heart heard of, ghost guessed:

It ís the blight man was born for,

It is Margaret you mourn for.

. . . . . . . .

Otherwise

Jane Kenyon - 1947-1995

I got out of bed

on two strong legs.

It might have been

otherwise. I ate

cereal, sweet

milk, ripe, flawless

peach. It might

have been otherwise.

I took the dog uphill

to the birch wood.

All morning I did

the work I love.

At noon I lay down

with my mate. It might

have been otherwise.

We ate dinner together

at a table with silver

candlesticks. It might

have been otherwise.

I slept in a bed

in a room with paintings

on the walls, and

planned another day

just like this day.

But one day, I know,

it will be otherwise.

. . . . . . . . . 

     The Veterans Administration announced yesterday that it would provide to female veterans abortion counseling and abortion procedures in cases of 'rape, incest, or when the health of the mother is in jeopardy' in its medical facilities regardless of state laws forbidding such services.  These kinds of care were not previously provided by the VA but match the policies in force in DOD medical facilities for active service members.  Abundant litigation looms.  

. . . . . . .

More Niebuhr:

"What is lacking among all these moralists, whether religious or rational, is an understanding of the brutal character of all human collectives, and the power of self-interest and collective egoism in all inter-group relations.  Failure to recognize the stubborn resistance of group egoism to all moral and inclusive social objectives inevitably involves them in unrealistic and confused political thought.  They regard social conflict either as an impossible method of achieving morally approved ends or as a momentary expedient which a more perfect education or a purer religion will make unnecessary.  They do not see that the limitations of the human imagination, the easy subservience of reason to prejudice and passion, and the consequent persistence of irrational egoism, particularly in group behavior,  make social conflict an inevitability in human history, probably to the end."

and

"Our contemporary culture fails to realize the power, extent and persistence of group egoism in human relations  It may be possible, though it is never easy, to establish just relations between individuals within a group purely by moral and rational suasion and accommodation.  In inter-group relations this is practically an impossibility.  The relations between groups must therefore always be predominately political rather than ethical, that is, they will be determined by the proportion of power which each group possesses at least as much as by any rational and moral appraisal of the comparative needs and claims of each group."

. . . . . .

Steve arrived at 7:30pm.