Very beautiful, Deborah. I suppose that I share parts of my heart when I write as you certainly do. Which is a gift to ourselves and to others reading,
When you share what is inside your heart, you give the one you are sharing with the power to nurture or wound. It is not given casually and should not be received lightly. Sometimes what is given may not be something that would be important to you, but it should be cherished because it is important to the one doing the giving.
Today is Valentine’s Day. A day to remember love gone by and a day to celebrate new love. I remember a 20 year-old boy and an 18 year old girl. On our first Valentine’s Day 65 years ago today, I bought her a single long stem red rose with the last 50 cents in my pocket. A year and a half later she became my wife. 60 plus years later on Valentine’s Day three years ago with sadness in my heart, I told her it was okay to stop fighting the cancer that was racking her body and she stopped the chemo her oncologist wanted to try and, completely, mentally aware, signed herself into hospice. With cancer as his ally, death won that fight six days later.
And yet, and yet, life continues and one year ago and again today I have sent lovely bouquets to the woman in Denver who once almost 70 years ago was my high school and early college years sweetheart. Love found again.
I have shared a few of my hopes, dreams and lessons I've learned. Possibly, at some point, it will be appropriate to risk sharing more, but that will depend on having the right audience and the confidence that I can again survive the damage if I'm wrong.
Dr. Deborah Hall: What a wonderful poem, beautiful, full of import.
You evince, as does your dear husband, what I call core values -- the worth of each person, free choice in life to all (with the principle, of course, of do no harm), the invaluable possibilities in a liberal democracy after the principles of the great John Rawls ("Theory of Justice"). I recommend a careful reading of Mr. Rawls' "Theory of Justice" to everyone.
John Rawls was a great political/economic philosopher of Harvard, who stood solidly in the heritage of John Locke ("Second Treatise of Government") and "The Federalist".
These concepts formed the very best of our Founders' vision, but that vision was literally vitiated by the evil institution of slavery.
Slavery, the mass arrests of black men starting in the late 19th century, the epidemic of lynching, the genocidal terror upon First-Nation Peoples -- all of these vitiate the grandest of visions of our Founders, who at their best, represented the Age of Reason and the Enlightenment of the 18th Century.
But that thinking is inconsistent with slavery and genocide and lynchings! These practices have vitiated the good of our ancestors.
In that light, I am really not surprised at the Nihilism of Musk/Vance/Tramp.
Love this
Very beautiful, Deborah. I suppose that I share parts of my heart when I write as you certainly do. Which is a gift to ourselves and to others reading,
When you share what is inside your heart, you give the one you are sharing with the power to nurture or wound. It is not given casually and should not be received lightly. Sometimes what is given may not be something that would be important to you, but it should be cherished because it is important to the one doing the giving.
Today is Valentine’s Day. A day to remember love gone by and a day to celebrate new love. I remember a 20 year-old boy and an 18 year old girl. On our first Valentine’s Day 65 years ago today, I bought her a single long stem red rose with the last 50 cents in my pocket. A year and a half later she became my wife. 60 plus years later on Valentine’s Day three years ago with sadness in my heart, I told her it was okay to stop fighting the cancer that was racking her body and she stopped the chemo her oncologist wanted to try and, completely, mentally aware, signed herself into hospice. With cancer as his ally, death won that fight six days later.
And yet, and yet, life continues and one year ago and again today I have sent lovely bouquets to the woman in Denver who once almost 70 years ago was my high school and early college years sweetheart. Love found again.
LOVE IS REAL
No matter where you are.
There is where I want to be.
Neither distance nor time
changes my love for you.
In our ninth decade
we are one you and I.
New memories ours alone
wait to be created.
I have shared a few of my hopes, dreams and lessons I've learned. Possibly, at some point, it will be appropriate to risk sharing more, but that will depend on having the right audience and the confidence that I can again survive the damage if I'm wrong.
Dr. Deborah Hall: What a wonderful poem, beautiful, full of import.
You evince, as does your dear husband, what I call core values -- the worth of each person, free choice in life to all (with the principle, of course, of do no harm), the invaluable possibilities in a liberal democracy after the principles of the great John Rawls ("Theory of Justice"). I recommend a careful reading of Mr. Rawls' "Theory of Justice" to everyone.
John Rawls was a great political/economic philosopher of Harvard, who stood solidly in the heritage of John Locke ("Second Treatise of Government") and "The Federalist".
These concepts formed the very best of our Founders' vision, but that vision was literally vitiated by the evil institution of slavery.
Slavery, the mass arrests of black men starting in the late 19th century, the epidemic of lynching, the genocidal terror upon First-Nation Peoples -- all of these vitiate the grandest of visions of our Founders, who at their best, represented the Age of Reason and the Enlightenment of the 18th Century.
But that thinking is inconsistent with slavery and genocide and lynchings! These practices have vitiated the good of our ancestors.
In that light, I am really not surprised at the Nihilism of Musk/Vance/Tramp.
Thank you for such beautiful writing!
Such good words. Thank you.