Month: May 2024

Sometimes

There is a little poem by Sheenagh Pugh called Sometimes. I first encountered it in the book Good Poems collected by Garrison Keillor. I have called it up as a Thanksgiving prayer of gratitude a couple of times in this blog and over our Thanksgiving celebrations with family and friends. I leave it to you to find it with the search tools you undoubtedly have at your disposal. It is difficult to give you the kind of post I would like to if I were working from my desktop at home so I leave it to you to do some digging.

Yesterday was one of those days — for me. The Astros won a game in Seattle after losing three in a row and Justice won out over the bullying threats of an ex-president. Set aside the Astros. There is always next year. But for the brave citizens that prosecuted, judged and read the facts of this case, I shall always be grateful. Their courage and understanding of duty is a model for us all.

The bullying ex-president was held accountable for the first time since appearing on our national political stage and maybe for the first time in his life. After hearing the verdict he faced the cameras for the first time in his business and political career with eyes that betrayed his fear of Justice. He showed the clear countenance of a loser.

Except for that, there was no reason for this to be major news. White collar crime in Manhattan is probably not so unusual as to deserve headline coverage in the New York Times. Sentences are usually light for white men gone astray. They can remain heroes in the world of finance and pass on fortunes to the kiddoes like Jared Kushner.

The ex-president’s misbehaving has probably only begun. A light sentence, say probation, provides a stage for him to challenge the judge lock him up. He would love the theater of it.

But there must be a way to let him stew over questions like guilt and innocence, crime and punishment. Maybe he could be assigned reading in the classics of American governance and jurisprudence and required to turn in short essays on what he has learned from the reading. His essays would undoubtedly repeat his tired chants about witch-hunts and how unfairly he is treated by the same Elites that administer death penalties on the streets to people of color.

Judge Merchan would give him a very public and embarrassing “F” and require him to re-read the assigned prompt until he starts to deal with fact and logic and maybe even admit that his own treatment and that of George Floyd is a false equivalence of the worst kind. Another “F”. Maybe even a zero on the assignment. Require him to strain his eyes and read again, and again. Maybe from his seat in that cold Manhattan court room.

I have very little concern for the ex-president and his feelings about the day. To me it was one of those days when things went right. Celebrate a win for Justice and the people.

But remember his followers. There are so many ways we have failed them.

We have reduced public education in most places to shallow measures of the transmission of “content” at a time when the world begs for thinkers who have explored ideas like justice, truth, fairness, and personal responsibility as starting points for better understanding of a structure of government that promotes these ideals.

We have given them hundreds of cable television channels that offer up drivel for tired and lazy minds twenty-four hours a day. Mixed into that stew of nonsense there are a few that offer journalism from the old school where there is no room for “true facts” versus facts. Just facts. Observable and undeniable facts.

We have given them gun-rights when they needed moral leadership. We have given them video games when the same technology might have been used to teach more deeply the meaning of religious traditions rooted in love, empathy and the revolutionary value of stepping back and listening to each other.

We might have given them the ability to read — to read deeply and critically. We might have given them good nutrition instead of the empty calories of fast food.

For now, they are our charges (or we, theirs?) and we need to co-exist without destroying a system of government that has held dictators at bay for over two centuries while other systems have produced authoritarian leaders that goaded us into wars and sacrifices that were necessary for the survival of the idea of freedom.

So, enjoy the day when a few things went the way they should. But do not forget the needs of all the folks who show up for the ex-president’s rallies.

Listen to them. Help them. They need the moral leadership of thinking people. Who really knows how that can best be provided? But it is a conundrum worthy of our own best thinking and effort.

Sometimes things don’t go, after all, / from bad to worse.

One Year, Nine Months and Two Days of Silence

Twenty-one months of silence in this age is, for me, an unnatural state. I cannot continue to voluntarily stand aside without some guilt of complicity with social and political trends that represent heartbreaking losses in the small gains in democracy and civility we made in our country since World War II.

I have never meant to use this space to make a lot of noise or to become an “influencer”. Few people even know that it is here. For me, sotlj.com is simply a place to say my piece without calling attention to myself or those who share this life-space with me. That is, I know, a contradiction but it has always been my way. And I had nothing much to add to the national conversation. Professional journalists and commentators were doing a much better job of it.

So why did I start writing again?

Nineteen days of illness and hospitalization have provided me time to think about things and people so dear to me that I could no longer hide my solitary inner self from them. But the thoughts expressed here are mine alone. The people I love most dearly speak for themselves much more powerfully in the work they do every day. Things I write here are my responsibility alone. I simply hope not to embarrass them.

Readers of this journal will notice some changes in my voice since my flirtation with mortality began almost three weeks ago on May 9, 2024. I have come to be more openly accepting of the religious tradition of my United Methodist Church. This was a gift from my mother that I have often thought of as being somewhere between a simple nuisance and the promotion of unscientific nonsense.

Before this experience I could not hear anything but mumbo-jumbo in a phrase like this: the healing power of the love of Christ.

I have spent many hours discussing things like this in Sunday school classes and I have nit-picked until I felt I had demolished the idea because of its clear disconnect from the reality I could see in science and, more specifically, in the science of modern medicine. There is another way to read it, though.

Ideas and expressions like that are rooted in traditions passed down by pre-scientific people who were able to see in any recovery a miracle. And the healing tools of the man they followed were simple acts of loving, touching and offering of something we call grace.

He was a revolutionary figure in our history for demonstrating the healing power of love for individuals and whole human societies. As the generations progressed, people have been motivated by the love he expressed to enter healing professions that rely on science and not prayer alone. It is what Jesus would have done. He might have been a doctor or nurse on the medical staff of a life-saving institution — maybe even a social worker, physical therapist, hospital administrator, dietitian or housekeeper. There would be teams of people working with him toward the goal of healing, all of them educated in a solid science and motivated by his unremitting love.

I have seen it clearly expressed by everyone who provided care for me during my long hospitalization. The single exception, I believe, was a result of the hardness of her own life and, perhaps, an unawareness of the presence and meaning of grace in her life. I had to speak up about her performance but I hope she is being treated with the same kind of love that has benefited me here.

All of that is to say that you will hear more religiosity in my voice although I will respect the church’s guardrail. Although I may tend to be preachy, I am not ordained and have no license to preach. But I will let you know what this Methodist thinks. That is a totally John Wesley approach and one of the reasons I so admire his interpretation of the traditions of Christ.

You may also hear more personal reflections, but not just about politics. I may even lapse into the thought and format of poetry. I may reminisce about coming of age in the awful and glorious Mid-Twentieth Century America. I feel compelled to share my experience with anyone who has time and willingness to read.

This is not the Tom Fowler you have known. I come now touched by grace and with, I hope, more than a little love. There is in that stuff the power to heal a broken world, Don’t overthink it. Just learn to live more completely with love as your companion, guide and driving force in everything you do.

No, this is not the course correction of an octogenarian suddenly afraid of death. It is simply a clearer perception of the love that drives this Catholic hospital and the love extended to me through the prayers of my friends. Let’s not strain it all through the divisive filter of theology. Just love every person you encounter. That’s not such hard work. In fact it’s fun to share your heart more fully every day with everyone you meet.

Just love and let’s listen to each other. Use the comment section at the end of each post and I promise to respond unless you are simply selling your own blog or the long-awaited perfect air fryer. Your anonymity will always be respected.