More and less

The world is more magical, less predictable,
more autonomous, less controllable,
more varied, less simple,
more infinite, less knowable,
more wonderfully troubling
than we could have imagined being able to tolerate when we were young.

            James Hollis, Finding Meaning in the Second Half of Life

 

 

 

 

 

A generous impulse

Make a commitment to act
    on every generous impulse that arises in you. . . .
Pray that your anxiety about your own life and possessions
    and about the future be lessened
        so that your generosity to others
            can become more and more fearless.

                                 Andrew Harvey, The Direct Path

 

 

 

 

 

Lessons learned

 Others will love what we have loved,

        and we shall teach them how.

                 William Wordsworth in a poem to Samuel Coleridge

 

 

 

 

 

 

Poem: Spared

"That Love is all there is,
Is all we know of Love... "
Emily Dickinson


It wasn't you, it wasn't me,
Up there, two thousand feet above
A New York street. We're safe and free,
A little while, to live and love,

Imagining what might have been -
The phone-call from the blazing tower,
A last farewell on the machine,
While someone sleeps another hour,

Or worse, perhaps, to say goodbye
And listen to each other's pain,
Send helpless love across the sky,
Knowing we'll never meet again,

Or jump together, hand in hand,
To certain death. Spared all of this
For now, how well I understand
That love is all, is all there is.

                        Wendy Cope

 

 

 

 

 

Missed opportunity

As the sixties wore on, the Staple Singers broadened their repertoire. Pops, who was in equal measure idealistic and shrewd, saw a growing appetite, among white listeners as well as Black, for his message songs. He even had the group record some of Dylan’s songs, including “Masters of War” and “A Hard Rain’s A-Gonna Fall.” Dylan developed what Staples calls a case of “puppy love.” On a cafeteria line before a performance, Dylan turned to Pops and said, “Pops, I want to marry Mavis.”

“Well, don’t you tell me, tell Mavis,” Pops said.

Staples delights in talking about it: “He was a cute little boy, little blue eyes, curly hair. He and Pervis got to be tight. They’d sit out on the stoop, drink wine.”

She describes their relationship as “courting,” with some “smooching” here and there. But, when I asked if they almost got married, she smiled and said, “Nobody almost gets married. . . ."

Many years later, in 2016, Staples and her band toured as an opening act for Dylan. As a matter of self-preservation, Dylan makes a habit of keeping to himself on the road, rarely consorting with the opening act when he’s got one. This time was different.

“The first show, someone knocked on my door and said someone wants to see you,” she told me. “In comes Bobby. And I said, ‘Bobby, I’m so glad to see you. I been wanting to see you for so long.’ ”

“You should have married me,” Dylan said. “You would’ve seen me every day.”

                 David Remnick, The Gospel According to Mavis Staples, in The New Yorker

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Clarke's Three Laws

1. When a distinguished but elderly scientist states that something is possible, he is almost certainly right. When he states that something is impossible, he is very probably wrong.

2. The only way of discovering the limits of the possible is to venture a little way past them into the impossible.

3. Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.

                 Arthur C. Clarke, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clarke%27s_three_laws

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Be prepared

My whole life is waiting for questions to which I have prepared answers.

                Tom Stoppard, Lord Malquist and Mr. Moon