Poem: Request

For a long time I was sure
it should be "Jumping Jack Flash," then
the adagio from Schubert's C major Quintet,
but right now I want Oscar Peterson's

"You Look Good to Me." That's my request.
Play it at the end of the service,
after my friends have spoken.
I don't believe I'll be listening in,

but sitting here I'm imaging
you could be feeling what I'd like to feel––
defiance from the Stones, grief
and resignation with Schubert, but now

Peterson and Ray Brown are making
the moment sound like some kind
of release. Sad enough
at first, but doesn't it slide into

tapping your feet, then clapping
your hands, maybe standing up
in that shadowy hall in Paris
in the late sixties when this was recorded,

getting up and dancing
as I would not have done,
and being dead, cannot, but might
wish for you, who would then

understand what a poem––or perhaps only
the making of a poem, just that moment
when it starts, when so much
is still possible––

has allowed me to feel.
Happy to be there. Carried away.

            Lawrence Raab

 

 

 

 

 

Our job in life

As human beings, our job in life is to help people realize how rare and valuable each one of us really is, that each of us has something that no one else has—or ever will have—something inside that is unique to all time. It's our job to encourage each other to discover that uniqueness and to provide ways of developing its expression.

        Fred Rogers, Mister Rogers' Neighborhood: Thoughts For All Ages 

 

 

 

 

 

Not on offer

I’m filled with a desire for clarity and meaning
    within a world and condition that offers neither.

            Albert Camus, The Myth of Sisyphus

 

 

 

 

Give it a whack

Nonsense wakes up the brain cells. And it helps develop a sense of humor, which is awfully important in this day and age. Humor has a tremendous place in this sordid world. It’s more than just a matter of laughing. If you can see things out of whack, then you can see how things can be in whack.

        Dr. Seuss [Theodor Geisel], Los Angeles Times interview 1983

Ready or not

Action springs not from thought, but from a readiness for responsibility.

        Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Letter to Renate and Eberhard Bethge

 

 

 

 

 

Direction

I may not have gone where I intended to go,
     but I think I have ended up where I needed to be.

            Douglas Adams, The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy

 

 

 

 

 

Everything is holy

After one school shooting, my beloved rabbi friend Sydney Mintz told me a story from the Midrash (a collection of stories about what the Hebrew Bible teaches). When Moses smashed the original tablets with the Ten Commandments and stomped off back to Mount Sinai, someone swept up all the shards. They were eventually added to the ark alongside the replacement copy of the commandments. We drag around our brokenness in the same container as our holiness.

        Anne Lamott, NY Times editorial, September 1, 2025