The mystery does not become clearer by repeating the questions.
(Rumi)
P.S. This just added after I published the above quotation: I give up, at least for now. I can’t get the poet’s name to move to the right where it belongs. It’s perfect in the “draft” part of the process of publishing, but then it moves back to the left when I “preview” it. So I am just publishing it and complaining.
But why does this happen? I don’t know. It’s a mystery.
(excerpted from Barbara Brown Taylor, The Luminous Web)
As a believer in One God, I think everything is connected to everything else. What is exciting to me is that believers in science are beginning to think the same thing–not the God part but the connection part. . . .
The new science requires a radical change in how we conceive the world. It is no longer possible to see it as a collection of autonomous parts, as Newton did, existing separately but interacting. The deeper revelation is one of undivided wholeness, in which the observer is not separable from what is observed. Or in [Werner] Heisenberg’s words, “the common division of the world into subject and object, inner world and outer world, body and soul is no longer adequate.
May Creek, AK
One year when he was in college my son, J, spent a summer working (theoretically) and living in May Creek, Alaska, in the Wrangell-St. Elias National Park. The only way to get there was by plane or helicopter. May Creek had a population of 1 if the ranger J worked with wasn’t there at the time, population 2 if the ranger was there, and a larger population when other rangers and/or visiting glaciologists were in temporary residence. J loved the mountains and the solitude and the beauty and the fact that he got to carry a pistol (in case of a grizzly bear attack).
McCarthy, AK
Once a month he got time off, and the mail plane took him to McCarthy, AK, which had a population of something like 8 in the winter but more in the summer. Besides a plane, the only way to get to McCarthy was to take a four-wheel drive vehicle miles and miles down a dirt/gravel road, then ferry yourself across a river by pulling on a big rope.
McCarthy, AK and Tallahassee, FL
[Important facts to know in order to follow this next part: the Florida State University football team is known as the Seminoles and the University of Florida team is the Gators. Florida State is in Tallahassee.]
So John was enjoying some of his brief time off, playing pool by himself at the only public building in McCarthy. Here is an excerpt from a letter he wrote about what happened next: I’m in the bar, someone walks in with a Gators cap. “Gators!” says the blonde woman at the bar, “I’m a die-hard Seminoles fan.” “Where you from,” I ask her. “Tallahassee.” “You read the Democrat?” “Every day.” “My Granddaddy used to publish that paper.” “Who?” “Jack Tapers.” “Do you know Kit?” “Yes. I’m her son.”
Turned out the blonde woman was B, working in McCarthy to make some money to get her float plane certification. My friend of last two posts and I had been a year ahead of her at good ol’ Leon High School in Tallahassee.
I don’t want to add this next part but I have to.
Tallahassee, FL and Houston
Shortly before her death, B was in MD Anderson Cancer Center in Houston getting treatment. The church I serve is just across the street from the Texas Medical Center where MDA is located. It was my privilege to have a couple of long visits with her before she went back to Tallahassee to die.
[See preceding two posts]
M, my Tallahassee friend, has emailed me. She says “Everything, every thing is connected.”
Dear friends, on the home page of the blog there is a tab called “About This Blog.” You may want to read it in the context of all these “Small World” posts.
PS There is one more to come.
PPS I am thinking I want to make it possible for those of you want to make comments on the posts to do that. There’s more connection that way. I don’t know how to make that happen, but I’ll give it a try soon.
(Read preceding post first.)
Tallahassee, FL and Rangeley, ME:
I just got a text from my old and dear friend in Tallahassee—well, of course I don’t mean actually old—I mean long-standing—hahahahaha—
Here’s the text:
“Rangeley Maine is just up Route 17 from [her former husband’s] cabin. Been there many times.”
Rome:
(An excerpt from Erik Larson, The Wright Brothers):
“The American ambassador to Italy, Lloyd Griscom, was one of those who went flying with Wilbur [in Rome].”
Houston:
I was surprised when I read that, because Col. Griscom was my godfather. I knew he had been Ambassador to Italy, but didn’t know about his flying in the new-fangled flying machine. Then I was surprised at a party a few years ago when I met a man named R Griscom, who incidentally has the same first name as my husband. Oh, I said, are you by any chance related to Col. Lloyd C. Griscom? Turns out he was—as I thought I remembered from my mother’s conversations—Col. Griscom’s grandson. We decided we are god-cousins.
Tallahassee, FL:
Col. Griscom and his family lived in the northeast, and spent a lot of vacation time in Maine. They also spent time in Tallahassee, where he owned the local newspaper, The Tallahassee Democrat. My father spent almost all of his adult life at the Democrat, beginning in 1928 as Circulation Manager. He was a reporter and a photographer before becoming Editor and finally Publisher.
Estes Park, CO and Rangeley, ME::
R and I spend much of the summers in Estes Park, where we attend The Parish Church of St. Bartholomew the Apostle. I love the name and the church. We hang out with the rector, S, and his family. One day when we were sitting on the front porch, S was telling us about the church in Rangeley, ME where he had formerly been rector. I can’t for the life of me remember the context in which this topic came up, but he mentioned a stalwart parishioner named R. Oh, I said, was he by any chance R Griscom? Well, of course, yes, he was.
It’s a small world.
desultory
disheveled
ramshackle
cantankerous
cranky
exotic
toxic
I’m grumpy because I have hurt my back again. Ironically, I hurt it while doing one of the exercises I do regularly to strengthen my muscles so I won’t hurt my back—aaaaarrrrrgh. If this happened to somebody else I would probably laugh, but since it’s me I don’t think it’s funny yet. Maybe tomorrow. Obviously this is not a terrible affliction, and it is getting better each day. But I don’t like to hurt even a little bit, and I am entitled to be grumpy, and I am.
I’m happy because the wonderful gift I was given [see January 8 post] has come to fruition and is still continuing. Let’s see, what’s a metaphor for that? How about this: I have been thirsty for just the right kind of water. Often I carry a bottle of water around with me in case I want it, but if I leave it in the car and it’s sunny and hot outside it will get all tepid and gross. Plus, what if I have forgotten my bottle and there is no water fountain around and I am soooo thirsty. But now, lo, I have remembered that I have a perpetual hidden spring of cool water inside me. Unfortunately I forget about it a lot of the time.
Here’s something amazing: I subscribe to an online series called ‘Joe Riley’ jnriley@comcast.net [Panhala]. Today’s poem, from the Selected Poems of Denise Levertov, is called “Of Being.” It could be called “Happy.” Here is an excerpt:
Of Being
I know this happiness
is provisional. . . .
but ineluctable this shimmering
of wind in the blue leaves:. . . .
this need to dance,
this need to kneel:
this mystery:
Notice the colon at the end. I don’t think that is a typo—I think Levertov is reminding us that, yes, when we’re in the mystery we don’t know what’s coming next but we do know it’ll be something.
Get ready–here’s a tone change:
As to the dwarf part of the title, I am not now nor have I ever been a dwarf. I am a tall person. (However, I am getting shorter as the days go by.) Plus I don’t have much in common with Snow White but I do like to take naps.
The spirit of liberty is the spirit that is not too sure that it is right; the spirit of liberty is the mind which seeks to understand the minds of other men and women.
(Judge Learned Hand, The Spirit of Liberty, 1944, quoted in Roger Angell, This Old Man)
Dear friends, I have been given a gift—a wonderful gift—that requires the attention and energy I would otherwise be spending on this blog. So my entries for a week or so may be sporadic. And short.
Now that I think about it, my entries are often short, aren’t they . . .
Is that a good thing or a bad thing?
Yes.
So Close to the Other Side 