6/1/24

 Saturday, June 1, 2024

1967, I was honorably discharged from the U.S. Marine Corps

In bed around 10, awake at 4:40 after many PSs, up at 4:57.  Let Lilly out into the warm predawn morning, hearing the lovely calls of the cardinals, house finches, and robins.  As I filled my water bottle at the sink, I found myself thinking of "the State of the Union 2024, Trump's venom, malice, and lust for power, Biden's age, undisguiseable limitations,  and unquenched lust for power and ascendency.  Better to listen to the birds than to think of these two incurably needy old men.

I'm grateful for much and to many today: especially for Geri and all her goodness and strength, for David and Sharon who came over yesterday, with a gorgeous bouquet, to lift the Lillycouch onto risers to ease Geri's getting on and off it, for the birds and bunnies, chipmunks and squirrels, turkeys and whitetails who share the space we live in. for the oatmeal and berries awaiting me first thing in the morning.

Prednisone, day 20.  Despite the many PS interruptions, I had an extraordinarily good sleep in bed last night almost 7 hours.  No significant pain this morning, keeping my fingers crossed for my lower back today.  It's already hurting.

State of the Union  Dan Balz's piece in this morning's WaPo reminds us that the big issue in this year's presidential election is not abortion, inflation, immigration, Ukraine, or Gaza, but rather which of the only two electable candidates for our highest office is the greater danger to the US, to us,  and to the world: the vicious, vindictive, hate-crazed Trump or the often mumbling, bumbling, great-grampa Biden, wanting to hold onto office till age 86. These are the options left to us by America's constitutional democracy, our calcified political culture, and the rule of law.  Both the Reds and the Blues claim, and mostly believe, that the other side threatens "Democracy,"  The Reds believe, without the need or availability of a lot of evidence, that our electoral system is "rigged" and "corrupt", as are our judicial and law enforcement institutions.  The Blues believe, with the support of lots of anecdotal and other evidence, that the Reds have turned into an anti-democracy "cult" of one-man, one-party rule, with little or no respect for legal institutions, Law itself, one-man, one-vote, or majority-rule.  We are faced with the near certainty that our next president will be a man already convicted of felonies in one court and awaiting trials on a multitude of other felonies in 3 other courts, or a man statistically likely to suffer from serious illness or death during another term of office, a man who even during his current term has steered clear of press conferences and probing interviews, a man whose death or incapacity would leave us with President Harris, whom virtually no one wants as president.  I suspect that many on the Left and on the Right are ready to throw in the towel on American democracy just as others are calling on us to throw in our hats to fight to protect it.  Would we be better off with some system other than our Constitutional system, drafted and implemented by slavers and oligarchs?  A parliamentary system?  A purer democracy without the minority-favoring features of our own?  The answer is probably 'yes' but changing from our current system seems almost impossible because of the constitutional dominance of our sparsely-populated, rural, Red states and the states of the old Confederacy, the still 'Solid South.'  James Madison, Thomas Jefferson, and their slave-holding plutocrats did a great job of protecting the interests of their wealthy minority against the interests of 'the mobs' of their fellow citizens who threatened them.  I draw some solace from Winston Churchill's observation after WWII:  ‘Many forms of Government have been tried, and will be tried in this world of sin and woe. No one pretends that democracy is perfect or all-wise. Indeed it has been said that democracy is the worst form of Government except for all those other forms that have been tried from time to time.…’

Reflecting on a grudge.  There is a feature piece by Julie Fraga in this morning's WaPo, 4 ways to let go of grudges that can harm our health.  She writes that " . . .  harboring resentment could reinforce upsetting thoughts, lower self-esteem and make negative feelings fester. Another study linked bearing a grudge with an increased risk of heart disease and chronic pain."  She suggests that the way to fight the negative effects of grudges is (1) assessing truthfully how the grudge is helping us and how it is hurting us, (2) doing aerobic exercises, (3) calling to mind "glimmers", or emotionally positive, rewarding experiences in our lives, and (4) practicing forgiveness.  Her writing reminded me of a terrible experience I endured many years ago.

I won't spend the time it would take to relate the complicated details of my grudge. Still, I state that I had cause to hold a grudge against two faculty colleagues who had been my very good friends and partners in a small continuing legal education business enterprise.  An issue arose about the circumstances of my service on the faculty, a promotion and tenure matter, and I learned that my friends had worked against my wishes and my interests, all behind my back and without ever discussing the matter with me.  I was angry and resentful beyond description.  Not only did the friendships and our partnership end, but also I was emotionally consumed by my anger and resentment.  I'm embarrassed to this day by how overwhelmed I was and how I carried those emotions deep inside me, letting them prevent me from doing work I should have been doing and indeed from enjoying life.  As I said, I am embarrassed at how vulnerable I was to the hurt I felt from the betrayal of my friendship.  Fortunately, I came to realize over time how much my self-defeating grudge was smothering my life.  I finally became free of it through forgiveness.  I recall stopping in the downstairs chapel at Gesu church and praying the Our Father and focusing on the words 'Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who have trespassed against us.'  It sounds a bit hokey, corny, or made up, but it's true.  I realized that holding on to my grudge was killing only me and doing nothing to those who had wronged me.  Later I heard a story that Buddy Hackett told on Johnny Carson's Tonight Show.  Carson asked him whether he held a grudge over some wrong that was done to him and Hackett replied: "No,  The trouble with a grudge is while you're miserable carrying that grudge around, the other guy is out dancing."  It's the opposite of William Blake's poem, A Poison Tree:

I was angry with my friend;  / I told my wrath, my wrath did end.

I was angry with my foe:  / I told it not, my wrath did grow. 

And I watered it in fears, / Night & morning with my tears: 

And I sunned it with smiles, /And with soft deceitful wiles. 

And it grew both day and night.  /Till it bore an apple bright. 

And my foe beheld it shine, /And he knew that it was mine. 

And into my garden stole,  / When the night had veiled the pole; 

In the morning glad I see;  /My foe outstretched beneath the tree.

Except it's not usually the offender who is killed by the resentment sustaining a grudge, but the resenter.

In Spoon River Anthology, we meet the wiser Dorcas Gustine who tells us:

I was not beloved of the villagers, / But all because I spoke my mind,

And met those who transgressed against me / With plain remonstrance, hiding nor nurturing / Nor secret griefs nor grudges.

That act of the Spartan boy is greatly praised, /Who hid the wolf under his cloak, / Letting it devour him, uncomplainingly.

It is braver, I think, to snatch the wolf forth / And fight him openly, even in the street, / Amid dust and howls of pain.

The tongue may be an unruly member — / But silence poisons the soul. /Berate me who will — I am content.

In Greek legend, the Spartan boy Dorcas refers to steals and hides under his cloak a fox cub rather than a wolf and the hidden fox keeps nibbling away around his heart, consuming and ultimately killing him.  So it is with a grudge.  And so I learned about forgiveness, that the ultimate benefit of forgiveness is not to the forgiven, but to the forgiver, who is relieved of a spiritual and emotional burden.  It is one of the most important learnings in my lifetime.  I also learned to appreciate how hard it can be to forgive a transgressor, and perhaps even impossible when the transgression is not against you, but rather against a loved one, e.g., a spouse or child.   I also came to appreciate the deep wisdom of Jesus' teaching in Matthew 18:22:  "Then Peter came to Jesus and asked, “Lord, how many times shall I forgive my brother who sins against me? Up to seven times?” Jesus answered, “I tell you, not just seven times, but seventy times seven times!" There's a lot of wisdom packed into those words from a guy about 30 years old.

Heaven on Earth.  I've written before of my experiences of Heaven on Earth, i.e. when I have the realization that I am profoundly blessed to be who I am where I am as I am RIGHT NOW and that it doesn't get better than this somewhere else in 'better' circumstances.  An afterlife with the cherubim and seraphim won't be better than my life with Geri and Lilly.  This is it; rejoice and embrace it, thankfully.  I had another one of those epiphanies this afternoon as I sat at my painting bench mixing paints and medium, selecting brushes, and trying to do something with my current painting experiment.  

LTMW around 4 this afternoon I see my neighbor Ghassan Madjalani walking his bull mastiff Athena in the steady cold rain.  It was a week ago today, while out for a walk with Judy, that I formally met him (and her) on County Line Road and had a good conversation with him about our families, etc.

It's 9:30 p.m., I'm fading but still awake, watching Series 3, episode 1 of the British dramady Trying on AppleTV, which we have been watching and thoroughly enjoying for the last few nights,  I have a load of compression socks in the dryer on "air fluff" and am about to retire to my bedroom after insisting that Lilly come in and abandon her stare-down with a local whitetail deer.  Geri's recovery from her knee surgery is "recovering apace" as she sits on the sofa knitting another scarf and hat combo for the program at Temple Emanuel.  It's been a good day.