1/25/24

 Saturday, January 25, 2024

D+79

1939 1st nuclear fission experiment (splitting of a uranium atom) in the US, in the basement of Pupin Hall, Columbia University by a team including Enrico Fermi

1949 First Israeli election was won by David Ben-Gurion

1959 Pope John XXIII proclaimed the 2nd Vatican council

In bed around 9:15, awake around 3 and up at 3:30.  I heard Geri moving her walker after I woke up but before I got up.  I lay in bed wondering if I should get up to see if I could help her in any way or leave her 'unmolested' by my attention as she coped with her challenges.  She has been admonishing me lately for staring at her which I confess I do, worried about her pain and various discomforts.  My heart aches to see her so burdened by the consequences of the knee replacement.  It's been 9 days since the surgery.  She walks very well and the physical therapist says that her therapy is going well, but her overall recovery is a struggle.  Cousin Sue, a blessing on her head, leaves today and just as I was sorry to see Steve leave for Chicago a week ago, I am sorry to see Sue leave today.  She has served as a personal nurse, maid, and housekeeper all week, an extraordinary gift to both Geri and me.  After I drop her off at the airport, it will be just Geri and me, she in her challenging condition and me in my arthritic decrepitude.  Sue returns to her husband Tom who has long been coping with a bad knee, a knee replacement, and recovery of his own, all with considerable pain.  Saint Sue! (I think of St. Susanna Church in Rome which I have visited.  Until 2117, it was the official American national church in Rome run by the Paulist Order under the patronage of Bernard Cardinal Law, of whom nothing need be said.)      

Prednisone, day 281, 5 + 2.5 mg., day 18.  5 mg. of prednisone at 4:45 with the last of CBG's banana bread and my other pills.  2.5 mg. prednisone at 5 p.m.

I dropped Sue off at the airport at about 1 p.m. I told her - again - how much we appreciated her thoughtfulness and assistance in spending the week with us, helping Geri and me the week after Geri's knee replacement surgery.  She could not have been more attentive and solicitous to Geri's health and comfort needs.  Geri & I are discussing what might be appropriate thank-you gifts.     

Early morning Facebook post:

Charles D. Clausen is  feeling thoughtful.

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I don't think "ironic" is the right word for it, but isn't it somewhat ironic that the great majority of those subject to the ICE roundup are Hispanic Catholics or evangelical protestants and that they are being rounded up as a top priority of of DJT, God-sent hero of many evangelicals and conservative Catholics, and DJV, an early evangelical and later Catholic convert.?  May we not wonder what role, if any, the teachings of the Prince of Peace has on those who profess to adore Him?  Love they neighbor as thyself, the Good Samaritan, and all that.  I'm thinking of all the religiosity incorporated into the recent inaugural ceremonials.  Also, I am reminded of the German Lutheran pastor Martin Niemoller's famous confession after WW II 'First they came for the Socialists, and I did not speak out because I was not a Socialist . . . "  Niemoller got in hot water with the Nazis because he wouldn't embrace the Deutsche Christen movement that portrayed Jesus as an Aryan and denied that he was a Jew.  For that, he was imprisoned from 1937 to 1945, after which he lectured frequently on personal responsibility and the consequences of not speaking up on behalf of those disfavored by the government. "And then they came for me - and there was no one left to speak for me."

Martin Niemoller:

First they came for the Communists, and I did not speak out - because I was not ommunist.

Then,  they came for the Socialists, and I did not speak out—because I was not a socialist.

Then they came for the Trade Unionists, and I did not speak out—because I was not a trade unionist.

Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out—because I was not a Jew.

Then they came for me—and there was no one left to speak for me.

WOMAN, WHY ARE YOU WEEPING? by Jane Kenyon

One morning after the Crucifixion, Mary Magdalene came to see the body of Christ. She found the stone rolled away from an empty tomb. Two figures dressed in white asked her, "Woman, why are you weeping?"

"Because," she replied, "they have taken away my Lord, and I do not know where they have laid him."

Returned from long travel, I sit

in the familiar, sun-streaked pew, waiting

for the bread and wine of holy Communion.

The old comfort does not rise in me, only

apathy and bafflement.

                                India, with her ceaseless

bells and fire, her crows calling stridently

all night; India with her sandalwood

smoke, and graceful gods, many-headed and many-

armed, has taken away the one who blessed

and kept me.

            The thing is done, as surely

as if my luggage had been stolen from the train.

 

Men and women with faces as calm as lakes at dusk

have taken away my Lord, and I don't know

where to find him.

                             *

What is Brahman? I don't know Brahman.

I don't know saccidandana, the bliss

of the absolute and unknowable.

I only know that I have lost the Lord

in whose image I was made.

Whom shall I thank for this pear,

sweet and white? Food is God, prasadam,

God's mercy. But who is this God?

The one who is not this, not that?

The absurdity of all religious forms

breaks over me, as the absurdity of language

made me feel faint the day I heard friends

giving commands to their neighbor's dog

in Spanish.... At first I laughed,

but then I became frightened.

                             *

They have taken away my Lord, a person

whose life I held inside me. I saw him

heal, and teach, and eat among sinners.

I saw him break the sabbath to make a higher

sabbath. I saw him lose his temper.

I knew his anguish when he called, "I thirst!,"

and received vinegar to drink. The Bible

does not say it, but I am sure he turned

his head away. Not long after he cried, "My God,

my God, why have you forsaken me?,"

I watched him reveal himself risen

to Magdalene with a single word: "Mary!"

It was my habit to speak to him. His goodness

perfumed my life. I loved the Lord, he heard

my cry, and he loved me as his own.

                             *

A man sleeps on the pavement, on a raffia mat --

the only thing that has not been stolen from him.

This stranger who loves what cannot be understood

has put out my light with his calm face.

Shall the fire answer my fears and vapors?

The fire cares nothing for my illness,

nor does Brahma, the creator, nor Shiva who sees

evil with his terrible third eye; Vishnu,

the protector, does not protect me.

I've brought home the smell of the streets

in the folds of soft, bright cotton garments.

When I iron them the steam brings back

the complex odors that rise from the gutters,

of tuberoses, urine, dust, joss, and death.

                             *

On a curb in Allahabad the family gathers

under a dusty tree, a few quilts hung

between light posts and a wattle fence

for privacy. Eleven sit or lie around the fire

while a woman of sixty stirs a huge pot.

Rice cooks in a narrow-necked crock

on the embers. A small dog, with patches of bald,

red skin on his back, lies on the corner

of the piece of canvas that serves as flooring.

Looking at them I lose my place.

I don't know why I was born, or why

I live in a house in New England, or why I am

a visitor with heavy luggage giving lectures

for the State Department. Why am I not

tap-tapping with my fingernail

on the rolled-up window of a white government car,

a baby in my arms, drugged to look feverish?

                             *

Rajiv did not weep. He did not cover

his face with his hands when we rowed past

the dead body of a newborn nudging the grassy

banks at Benares -- close by a snake

rearing up, and a cast-off garland of flowers.

He explained. When a family are too poor

to cremate their dead, they bring the body

here, and slip it into the waters of the Ganges

and Yamuna Rivers.

                                Perhaps the child was dead

at birth; perhaps it had the misfortune

to be born a girl. The mother may have walked

two days with her baby's body to this place

where Gandhi's ashes once struck the waves

with a sound like gravel being scuffed

over the edge of a bridge.

"What shall we do about this?" I asked

my God, who even then was leaving me. The reply

was scorching wind, lapping of water, pull

of the black oarsmen on the oars....