(please keep in mind my understanding that all time is simultaneous . )

In the April 10^th  1992 journal entry  I wrote of a prior conversation our second son David and I had before he left our Earth, (a philosophy major first before becoming a lawyer) about the benign nature of the Universe, being neither good nor bad.  Floating through my brain was Robert Frost’s ‘forgive me lord my little jokes on thee . . . and I will forgive thy great big one on me.’  He knew of what he spoke.  It made me weep once but now I think that is the way it is.

Susan Howatch , one of my favorite authors on her Church of England series, writes that some philosophers believe that human nature cannot grasp the concept of reality at all.  Charles Schulz said that it was ‘so futile’ as the reason he stopped cartooning. 

I think all is eventually universally good.  Otherwise and I still know it deep down,  we could not go on.  But how far out does one go for universally good?

I scribed the edited paragraph answer. . . Your lament of how far out is universally good is not valid.  Because for you to see it where you are, the last chapter would be writ.   No pages turning over or flying by with the taste of exuberance never to know again.  Imagine a life without it, any life? 

There are those who do not know  exuberance.  The dailyness numbs one’s creativity.  But there are books to reread, knitting to pick up or something to give another go at the morrow.

This entry ended with telling me to pack up my few  illusions and get some sleep.  And why I had so few illusions baffled the teachers.  I scribed the following poem from that entry.

Nighttime  Conversation  . . .

I say. . . That spring will be a long one and
the summer will be a cool one.
You say. . .
It is amusing to hear your pronouncements
on the weather.  You feel its feel upon your face
and monitor your response with some rare things.

You and Mother Nature have something going on.
Or is it you listen to the birds singing their song or
the earth whispering to the sun that its arthritis is

not healing?  Or perhaps the night song is the one
that the sun hears in the morning and in the night
you listen in and eavesdrop?  Perhaps that is all

there is to your murmurings on the condition of the
weather?  But in your arthritic state why is it you
revel in the cold and dark, drawing up your gown

closer to your neck and whispering how old you get
because you love your comforts?  Is it too much just
to say my bed is the most comfortable and my tub

long enough for this creaky body to lie down?  And
why the guilt?  Asceticism went out with the hair shirt,
you know.  There is nothing decadent about wanting

to stay warm nor relieving one’s congestion.  Ahhhhh . . . .
you civilians. . . when will you learn?

 

photo by John Hallissey