In Light of Recent Events

Last weekend the hurricane in the South was a blip in the back of my mind, but as events unfolded this week, I found myself caught up in the horror of those who remain trapped and desperate in the New Orleans region.

In that dark mode, how to justify something as "meaningless" as creating art?

But then I remember our mission in life is to help each other make it through.

A vaccuum has been created, devoid of not just Law and Structure, but hope and joy. We must do what we can to fill that void with hope and love and kindness and joy and yes, beauty and art, even in, especially in, the face of despair and fear. We must bring light to a world that threatens sometimes to be consumed by darkness.

If you haven't chosen a place to donate, I recommend the Houston Food Bank. Because of their partnerships, a $1 donation buys about $5 worth of groceries, and a $100 donation buys almost 4000 meals.

Earlier this year, I came across this poem by Jack Gilbert, Refusing Heaven, and it says it all to me:

A Brief for the Defense

Sorrow everywhere. Slaughter everywhere. If babies
are not starving someplace, they are starving
somewhere else. With flies in their nostrils.
But we enjoy our lives because that's what God wants.
Otherwise the mornings before summer dawn would not
be made so fine. The Bengal tiger would not
be fashioned so miraculously well. The poor women
at the fountain are laughing together between
the suffering they have known and the awfulness
in their future, smiling and laughing while somebody
in the village is very sick. There is laughter
every day in the terrible streets of Calcutta,
and the women laugh in the cages of Bombay.

If we deny our happiness, resist our satisfaction,
we lessen the importance of their deprivation.
We must risk delight. We can do without pleasure,
but not delight. Not enjoyment. We must have
the stubbornness to accept our gladness in the ruthless
furnace of this world. To make injustice the only
measure of our attention is to praise the Devil.

If the locomotive of the Lord runs us down,
we should give thanks that the end had magnitude.
We must admit there will be music despite everything.
We stand at the prow again of a small ship
anchored late at night in the tiny port
looking over to the sleeping island: the waterfront
is three shuttered cafés and one naked light burning.
To hear the faint sound of oars in the silence as a rowboat
comes slowly out and then goes back is truly worth
all the years of sorrow that are to come.