12/02/20

Dear 34 year old Adam,

I've just turned 33. This has been a very challenging year. I'm sure the history books will remember 2020 as the year of the COVID-19 pandemic and the year Trump lost. This year started out very promising. I had purchased plane tickets to visit Brian over spring break, fly to Colorado for Travis' wedding, and go to India with Tem. None of that happened. Instead I spent this entire year stuck in the great state of Ohio. Sometime in March Governor DeWine closed down all schools in Ohio for three weeks. He called it an 'early spring break.' Shortly after that the entire fourth quarter of school was to be done virtually. I have spent from March to this very moment in quarantine. I've tried my best to be a good brother to my fellow humans but it seems one person's actions alone isn't enough. This summer I spent my days walking the streets of Columbus listening to podcasts and auidobooks during the mid mornings. Attending protests at the statehouse in the afternoons. I spent my evenings connecting with friends on Xbox Live since in person visits were out of the question. Tem and I spent every second together in that one bedroom condo on Hamilton Avenue. I can't remember the last time I went to a bar or restaurant. Well, I guess I did go out once when Tem's sister was visiting. I can't remember the last movie I saw in a theater. Travis ended up cancelling his reservations in Veil and settling for a backyard wedding which I did attend. Worth the risk to see my friend get married. This fall as the school year approached it became clearer, the first quarter of school would also be virtual. And now here I am halfway through the second quarter with no end in sight of teaching Kindergarten through a zoom call. Tem and I bought a condo on Monroe Ave in King-Lincoln this fall. I still have the iPhone Xs I bought last year in Seattle. I still spend my free time talking to my friends while playing video games on Xbox. I became an uncle, Tyler and Brittany has a daughter, Aurora, Travis and Bobo both got married, Alan became a father, and Brian moved back to Cincinnati. This year has been like nothing I've experienced. The Olympics were cancelled travel was banned between countries, and many lives have been lost. This pandemic has really showed me how fragile life is. The delicate balance this planet reminds us again and again. Like a single beetle from Asia destroying trees in North America. Life has always been vulnerable, heart disease, traffic accidents, and the sort. But seeing how something not visible to the human eye can halt the entire world makes me realize how incredibly balanced this planet has been in years past. I could take a plane from Ohio to Ndola and breathe the air, taste the food, and hug the people without danger. At any moment life could be changed by a single microscopic virus. I guess it's also been a decade since I graduated college. 

Things I'm doing now:
I've been living with Tem for over a year now. In fact in October Tem and I bought a condo together. I am in my fourth year teaching Kindergarten. I passed RESA last year. However this year has introduced a new challenge of teaching virtually. I spend my days in front of a computer screen in an empty classroom. I've always loved my job and looked forward to work but these days waking up to go to work has been a struggle. I hate living like that. I still hit the gym in the mornings three times a week I'm still reading books from reading list we made although I will admit some of them I downloaded the audiobook version. We did manage to vote out the president this year like 31 year old Adam had hoped. However, now we are stuck with Biden. But we'll see how he does. I no longer want to see the police reformed. I'd prefer the force be abolished entirely. As far as Africentric's rating goes those goals may be put on hold a bit because of this pandemic. 

Things I hope you're doing:
I hope you and Tem are ready for a baby. I know we've planned to try once she turns 30 and that will be next year. I hope you do a better job journaling than I did. I hope you're back to in person school. Jesus I hope you're back to in person school. I hope you and Tem visit India and New Zealand. I hope the vaccine happens and that it isn't just for the rich. I hope you're able to go to a fucking bar finally. I hope you can hug your friends, visit Wauseon, see Aurora often, visit Bobo in Chicago, Todd in San Diego, finally meet Sula, Alan's daughter. I hope you're paying off this new condo. I hope the renters at Hamilton aren't complicated. Honestly, I just hope the pandemic is over and I never have to experience another. The bar is very low for 2021. 

Things I've learned since turning 33:
My early 30s. What have I learned this year? I learned a bit more about how racist this country I live in is. I learned a lot of people wanted Trump to stay president including the majority of Ohio. I think I always wondered what it was like to live in the 1960s during the civil rights movement. As years pass I wonder if 2020 will be placed among those years. It is amazing how a history book can make news look like the most important thing and it certainly can be but at the same time so many people are privileged enough to ignore it. It was very possible to live in the 1960s and not even know any of the protests were happening or for them to not impact your life in anyway. I saw that in 2020. Protests across the nation in every major city and what changed? What did the politicians do? How many Americans were completely apathetic to the cries for justice and how many more were actually on the other side of the issue not crying out for justice from their government. I've learned this year that no matter how advanced technology gets face to face, in person interactions will always be needed. People don't just want to stay home and order things online, although people are free and able to do so. I probably shouldn't speak in absolute about those sorts of things. I've seen a darker side of humanity this year. I've seen people hoard toilet paper, a commodity that has always been available in abundance. I've seen protesters supporting white nationalists. People denying the reality of a pandemic. It has been a truly odd year. But since the marches in Ferguson I've also seen a bit more of an awakening in America even if it was short lived even if nothing changed. It seems messaging of oppressed groups, thanks to the internet and social media, can be amplified to maybe even reach those privileged people who've had the luxury of ignoring other's needs. It seems to be two steps forward one step back but slowly forward. I've learned that voting for the lesser of two evils, although not ideal, is necessary because someone is going to be elected. Voting isn't everything, but it is certainly not nothing. The older I get the more I seem to pull away from an interest in sports and fantasy and start to draw more towards politics and history. I think this new interest has sprouted from a desire to understand the world. To try and make sense of horrible things, to try and categorize the chaos. Ignoring suffering isn't doing it for me and shrugging of shoulders isn't good enough. Learning how we got here and learning the paths forward continues to gain my interest more and more. 

1987 Born

1988 00

1989 01

1990 02

1991 03

1992 04
1993 05 Started Grade School
1994 06
1995 07
1996 08
1997 09
1998 10
1999 11
2000 12
2001 13
2002 14
2003 15
2004 16
2005 17
2006 18 Graduated High School
2007 19
2008 20
2009 21
2010 22 Graduated College
2011 23
2012 24
2013 25
2014 26
2015 27
2016 28
2017 29 Ohio Early Childhood Teaching License
2018 30
2019 31
2020 32 Bought Condominium, Became an Uncle

09/27/20

My goal as been a minimum of one letter a month. Obviously August was a loss but there's still time for September.

2020 has been the worst of years and in so being, the best of years?

2020 has forced us all to come to terms with the fragility of our mortality, the racist oppressive systems built into our justice system, and the flaws of our democracy. 

My brain has so many ways it could go here. So many thoughts to express.

You could spend your whole live taking care of your body just to have a microscopic virus bring you to your knees.

A virus that doesn't see title, wealth, status, and yet within a system that very much does.

George Floyd and Breonna Taylor are two more of the countless victims of this country's corrupt justice system. The system is not broken. It is functioning exactly as it was designed. I won't go too much into the system since I went down that rabbit hole on The Filibust back in June. But I will say as I listen to the Hamilton soundtrack nonstop and as I rewatch the John Adams miniseries I can't help but think about the words and ideals this country was built on juxtaposed with the reality of the country today. 

At the country's start only allowing white landowning men to cast a vote fell short of their very words and ideals. The talk of freedom and self-evident truths about equality, endowed by God with unalienable rights while simultaneously viewing black humans as property, women as less, and the native nations of the land as intruders confirmed their shortcomings.

But I often think about that first episode of the John Adam series where he is asked to represent the British soldiers responsible for the Boston Massacre. No idea how accurate the portrayal actually is but the drama and tension of the episode paints the turmoil of a blind and fair trial in the context of a politically charged moment.

This scene can be viewed, when put in today's context, in poor taste. A founding father defending the police state for murdering unarmed citizens could be seen as a perfect allegory for how our fucked up system came to be and has always been.

But I want to step outside of my time, if that's even possible, and I want to look at this scene the way I believe John Adams viewed it even in his time. If we are to believe and hope for one day a truly unbiased and perfect justice system, one that isn't swayed by power, or money then we must constantly put ourselves outside of our time and thus context. And we have to believe that is possible.

James Traub has a great opinion piece from March of 2016 Call It What It Is: A Rabble Dan Carlin also posted an incredible new Common Sense episode Common Sense 320 – Steering Into the Iceberg Both talk about the difference between Jefferson and Adams. The difference between a Republic and a Democracy. "The people can be as tyrannical as any king." Adams' perspective and fear of the 'mob' was as vital and necessary as Jefferson's view of the individualism of the people. 

It would have been the popular and politically smart thing to have those British officers hanged for opening fire on the unarmed colonists. And it's easy to draw a connecting line to today's police opening fire on unarmed Americans but as I said I'm going to stay outside of my own context. Adams did not listen to the mob, he did not listen to the motivations of the moment. Adams chose to step back and look at the facts and because of this and in finding the truth he upset the mob but in the name of justice.

Today on twitter I see such a mob mentality. I see the Republicans hypocritically pushing through a third Trump nomination to the Supreme Court. Then I see the Democrat mob talking about "packing the courts" This tit for tat sort of politics. Packing the courts in a corrupt system is a shortsighted solution. The solution should be making supreme court nominations require the super majority vote in the Senate and also needing approval from the House. Even if the three police officers who murdered Breonna Taylor were indicted it would give this country a false sense of trust in the system. Even a broken clock is right twice a day. So long as qualified immunity exists justice will not be possible. So long as we keep funding a police force who carry guns and enforce biased laws justice will not be possible.

The mob on the left speak of revolution, and I must agree the system is broken and corrupt, but to what end? We dismantle the American form of democracy only to put what in its place? The framework is all here. The more I think about our government the more I believe, I hope, in it. Our system is built in a way that we can amend the Constitution, and have for the better. Our system is built in a way that we can end qualified immunity, we can end voter suppression, we can pass universal healthcare. Our system is broken and corrupt and racist and in the same breath our system is built correctly it has the ability and potential to right the ship.

In Europe, after the French Revolution, he saw how fanatical leaders had provoked the blood lust of “the rabble.” “In the name of the People,” he wrote in a diplomatic dispatch, “the Guillotine has mowed its thousands and the grapeshot have swept off their tens of thousands.”

-John Quincy Adams from the Traub piece

We can guillotine Bezos, impeach Trump, convict Breonna's murderers, and pack the Supreme Court all we want but unless we change the corrupt laws (which we can do thanks to our framework) it will all be for nothing. 

I see the mobs online talk of how imperfect of a candidate Biden is but to what end? This election will happen and either Trump or Biden will be the next president. Again the system is broken because of this duopoly but we can change it and those changes must be done through the system. Stepping outside of the system to write in a candidate to only appease your conscience is selfish and privileged. It's taken me a long time to see this view.

When nothing is owed or deserved or expected

And your life doesn't change by the man that's elected

If you're loved by someone, you're never rejected

Decide what to be and go be it

I think about that second line of lyrics a lot lately. "Your life doesn't change by the man that's elected" If your life doesn't change by the man that's elected that doesn't mean you are truly free...It means you are privileged (which I suppose is a sort of self centered freedom). 

A third party vote is a vote that says I demand purity from a system built on compromise run by fallible people. The system works best when we force Jefferson and Adams to the table to make a deal. 

You wanna pull yourself together?

I'm sorry, these Virginians are birds of a feather

Young man, I'm from Virginia, so watch your mouth

So we let Congress get held hostage by the South?

You need the votes

No, we need bold strokes, we need this plan 

no, you need to convince more folks

James Madison won't talk to me, that's a nonstarter

Ah, winning was easy, young man, governing's harder

They're being intransigent

You have to find a compromise

But they don't have a plan, they just hate mine 

convince them otherwise

And what happens if I don't get congressional approval?

I imagine they'll call for your removal

Sir

Figure it out, Alexander, that's an order from your commander

I love this exchange from the musical Hamilton. Alexander tells Washington "we need bold strokes" and Washington's reply is "you need to convince more folks" This is how our system is built. The temptation for the bold stroke of an executive order restrained by working to earn more votes.

In the John Adams miniseries the continental congress earns the majority of the votes for independence but Adams isn't satisfied he says it must be unanimous. The vote was eventually unanimous, with only New York abstaining. That is when the declaration of independence was drafted. If we build a new nation with only 51% approval it will fail. The same is true for Supreme Court nominations, and many other things in our government.

"No taxation without representation" is a political slogan originating during the 1700's that summarized one of 27 colonial grievances of the American colonists in the Thirteen Colonies, which was one of the major causes of the American Revolution. In short, many in those colonies believed that, as they were not directly represented in the distant British Parliament, any laws it passed affecting the colonists (such as the Sugar Act and the Stamp Act) were illegal under the Bill of Rights 1689, and were a denial of their rights as Englishmen.

Many Americans today believe the founding fathers didn't want to be ruled by a king so they broke off to start an independent republic. But the truth is the colonies simply wanted representation in British Parliament (that's an oversimplification but if they had been given a seat in Parliament to argue for their rights I wonder where we would be today.) 

How is representation doing in modern America? Well for instance California accounts for 12% of the population but only gets two votes when it comes to a supreme court justice. The solution of course would be forcing a super majority vote and putting the nomination through the House also where California has 53 seats. The other issue is the electoral college, sure. But it's also the "winner take all" design of the electoral college. For instance Ohio has 18 votes in the electoral college. If a candidate wins 51% of the votes in Ohio they win all 18. So the 49% of voters who wanted the other candidate are erased. Instead, the EC could potentially stay in existence but have the votes be split to represent the voters of the state giving only 10 to the winning candidate and 8 to the other. Winning by 1 point should not be rewarded the same as winning by 100%. Also Five colonists were killed in the Boston Massacre. 1,010 people have been shot and killed by police in 2019. How far were the colonists pushed before their revolution and I wonder how far we have been pushed by our own government today. 

God I know I'm getting older by how intrigued I am by politics, especially how much I find that to be a good thing. 

 One Last Time - HAMILTON

07/05/20

BROTHER TOD CLIFTON

OUR HOPE SHOT DOWN

Someone nudged me and I started. It was time for final words. But I had no words and I'd never been to a Brotherhood funeral and had no idea of a ritual. But they were waiting. I stood there alone; there was no

microphone to support me, only the coffin before me upon the backs of its wobbly carpenter's horses.

    I looked down into their sun-swept faces, digging for the words, and feeling a futility about it all and an anger. For this they gathered by thousands. What were they waiting to hear? Why had they come? For what reason that was different from that which had made the red-cheeked boy thrill at Clifton's falling to the earth? What did they want and what could they do? Why hadn't they come when they could have stopped it all? 

    "What are you waiting for me to tell you?" I shouted suddenly, my voice strangely crisp on the windless air. "What good will it do? What if I say that this isn't a funeral, that it's a holiday celebration, that if you stick around the band will end up playing 'Damit-the-Hell the Fun's All Over'? Or do you expect to see some magic, the dead rise up and walk again? Go home, he's as dead as he'll ever die. That's the end in the beginning and there's no encore. There'll be no miracles and there's no one here to preach a sermon. Go home, forget him. He's inside this box, newly dead. Go home and don't think about him. He's dead and you've got all you can do to think about you." I paused. They were whispering and looking upward.

    "I've told you to go home," I shouted, "but you keep standing there. Don't you know it's hot out here in the sun? So what if you wait for what little I can tell you? Can I say in twenty minutes what was building

twenty-one years and ended in twenty seconds? What are you waiting for, when all I can tell you is his name? And when I tell you, what will you know that you didn't know already, except perhaps, his name?"

    They were listening intently, and as though looking not at me, but at the pattern of my voice upon the air.

    "All right, you do the listening in the sun and I'll try to tell you in the sun. Then you go home and forget it. Forget it. His name was Clifton and they shot him down. His name was Clifton and he was tall and some

folks thought him handsome. And though he didn't believe it, I think he was. His name was Clifton and his face was black and his hair was thick with tight-rolled curls -- or call them naps or kinks. He's dead, uninterested, and, except to a few young girls, it doesn't matter . . . Have you got it? Can you see him? Think of your brother or your cousin John. His lips were thick with an upward curve at the corners. He often smiled. He had good eyes and a pair of fast hands, and he had a heart. He thought about things and he felt deeply. I won't call him noble because what's such a word to do with one of us? His name was Clifton, Tod Clifton, and, like any man, he was born of woman to live awhile and fall and die. So that's his tale to the minute. His name was Clifton and for a while he lived among us and aroused a few hopes in the young manhood of man, and we who knew him loved him and he died. So why are you waiting? You've heard it all. Why wait for more, when all I can do is repeat it?"

    They stood; they listened. They gave no sign.

    "Very well, so I'll tell you. His name was Clifton and he was young and he was a leader and when he fell there was a hole in the heel of his sock and when he stretched forward he seemed not as tall as when he stood. So he died; and we who loved him are gathered here to mourn him. It's as simple as that and as short as that. His name was Clifton and he was black and they shot him. Isn't that enough to tell? Isn't it all you need to know? Isn't that enough to appease your thirst for drama and send you home to sleep it off? Go take a drink and forget it. Or read it in The Daily News. His name was Clifton and they shot him, and I was there to see him fall. So I know it as I know it.

    "Here are the facts. He was standing and he fell. He fell and he kneeled. He kneeled and he bled. He bled and he died. He fell in a heap like any man and his blood spilled out like any blood; red as any blood, wet as any blood and reflecting the sky and the buildings and birds and trees, or your face if you'd looked into its dulling mirror -- and it dried in the sun as blood dries. That's all. They spilled his blood and he bled. They cut him down and he died; the blood flowed on the walk in a pool, gleamed a while, and, after awhile, became dull then dusty, then dried. That's the story and that's how it ended. It's an old story and there's been too much blood to excite you. Besides, it's only important when it fills the veins of a living man. Aren't you tired of such stories? Aren't you sick of the blood? Then why listen, why don't you go? It's hot out here. There's the odor of embalming fluid. The beer is cold in the taverns, the saxophones will be mellow at the Savoy; plenty good-laughing-lies will be told in the barber shops and beauty parlors; and there'll be sermons in two hundred churches in the cool of the evening, and plenty of laughs at the movies. Go listen to 'Amos and Andy' and forget it. Here you have only the same old story. There's not even a young wife up here in red to mourn him. There's nothing here to pity, no one to break down and shout. Nothing to give you that good old frightened feeling. The story's too short and too simple. His name was Clifton, Tod Clifton, he was unarmed and his death was as senseless as his life was futile. He had struggled for Brotherhood on a hundred street corners and he thought it would make him more human, but he died like any dog in a road.

    "All right, all right," I called out, feeling desperate. It wasn't the way I wanted it to go, it wasn't political. Brother Jack probably wouldn't approve of it at all, but I had to keep going as I could go.

    Listen to me standing up on this so-called mountain!" I shouted. "Let me tell it as it truly was! His name was Tod Clifton and he was full of illusions. He thought he was a man when he was only Tod Clifton. He was shot for a simple mistake of judgment and he bled and his blood dried and shortly the crowd trampled out the stains. It was a normal mistake of which many are guilty: He thought he was a man and that men were not meant to be pushed around. But it was hot downtown and he forgot his history, he forgot the time and the place. He lost his hold on reality. There was a cop and a waiting audience but he was Tod Clifton and cops are everywhere. The cop? What about him? He was a cop. A good citizen. But this cop had an

itching finger and an eager ear for a word that rhymed with 'trigger,' and when Clifton fell he had found it. The Police Special spoke its lines and the rhyme was completed. Just look around you. Look at what he made, look inside you and feel his awful power. It was perfectly natural. The blood ran like blood in a comic-book killing, on a comic-book street in a comic-book town on a comic-book day in a comic-book world.

    "Tod Clifton's one with the ages. But what's that to do with you in this heat under this veiled sun? Now he's part of history, and he has received his true freedom. Didn't they scribble his name on a standardized pad? His Race: colored! Religion: unknown, probably born Baptist. Place of birth: U.S. Some southern town. Next of kin: unknown. Address: unknown. Occupation: unemployed. Cause of death (be specific): resisting reality in the form of a .38 caliber revolver in the hands of the arresting officer, on Forty-second between the library and the subway in the heat of the afternoon, of gunshot wounds received from three bullets, fired at three paces, one bullet entering the right ventricle of the heart, and lodging there, the other severing the spinal ganglia traveling downward to lodge in the pelvis, the other breaking through the back and traveling God knows where.

    "Such was the short bitter life of Brother Tod Clifton. Now he's in this box with the bolts tightened down. He's in the box and we're in there with him, and when I've told you this you can go. It's dark in this box and it's crowded. It has a cracked ceiling and a clogged-up toilet in the hall. It has rats and roaches, and it's far, far too expensive a dwelling. The air is bad and it'll be cold this winter. Tod Clifton is crowded and he needs the room. 'Tell them to get out of the box,' that's what he would say if you could hear him. 'Tell them to get out of the box and go teach the cops to forget that rhyme. Tell them to teach them that when they call you n***** to make a rhyme with trigger it makes the gun backfire.'

    "So there you have it. In a few hours Tod Clifton will be cold bones in the ground. And don't be fooled, for these bones shall not rise again. You and I will still be in the box. I don't know if Tod Clifton had a soul. I only know the ache that I feel in my heart, my sense of loss. I don't know if you have a soul. I only know you are men of flesh and blood; and that blood will spill and flesh grow cold. I do not know if all cops are poets, but I know that all cops carry guns with triggers. And I know too how we are labeled. So in the name of Brother Clifton beware of the triggers; go home, keep cool, stay safe away from the sun. Forget him. When he was alive he was our hope, but why worry over a hope that's dead? So there's only one thing left to tell and I've already told it. His name was Tod Clifton, he believed in Brotherhood, he aroused our hopes and he died."

-Chapter 21 Invisible Man by Ralph Ellison 1952

68 years ago police killing unarmed black men was old and tired news. I think about the 244th celebration of independence day and I think about what a joke that holiday title is. What an absolute joke. 

06/28/20

Café veranda near cobble stone

Sunrise steam from the zipper of a tent

Studio plants on vinyl

8pm summer weekday 

Afternoon gasp off a diving board

Shaded concert on the lawn

Window breeze at noon

Canned beer on the porch

We cannot stop time, we cannot bottle a moment

A scent can travel time

1987

1887

1787

2087

Centuries in a click

Climbs up Homecoming Hill

Late night campus walks through the Soval 

Mattresses on the dinning hall floor

Summer internship at Engage Advertising, World Cup vuvuzelas

Mt Adams rooftop dinner overlooking the Holy Cross Immaculata Church 

Park Street happy hour walk from the the battleship building

Monday night meals at the pantry

The red dirt of Zambia tea with milk and honey under the banana tree

Hostel in Livingstone Zambia near the pool table 2012 Summer Olympics opening ceremony

Bison burger at a Wyoming truck stop during a midnight snowstorm

Train ride along the Irish coast to Greystones

The gooey cheese wheel down a Parisian boulevard

The Irish pub in Rome USA vs. Ghana, 2014 World Cup rowdy "I believe that we will win!"

Audio books through the Texas highway 

Saturdays pulling weeds at Arawak 

Cairo shisha playing backgammon sipping Mowz bil-Laban

Sardines over an open fire in the Yosemite Valley

Nutella on a campfire breakfast bagel at an Atlantic beach

Seventh Son Brewing Co. after the first day of teaching

German Village coffee shop

Sleeping on a picnic table at the bottom of the Grand Canyon 

AirBnB black out curtains Reykjavik mega Kropp chocolate balls as the sun never sets

Pisco sours in the Peruvian rain

A Gomez Turtle Over-The-Rhine

The summit of Mount Saint Helens with pebbles in my socks

King-Lincoln sun streak brick

05/17/20

“Here you all are,” began the prince, “settling yourselves down to listen to me with so much curiosity, that if I do not satisfy you you will probably be angry with me. No, no! I’m only joking!” he added, hastily, with a smile.

“Well, then—they were all children there, and I was always among children and only with children. They were the children of the village in which I lived, and they went to the school there—all of them. I did not teach them, oh no; there was a master for that, one Jules Thibaut. I may have taught them some things, but I was among them just as an outsider, and I passed all four years of my life there among them. I wished for nothing better; I used to tell them everything and hid nothing from them. Their fathers and relations were very angry with me, because the children could do nothing without me at last, and used to throng after me at all times. The schoolmaster was my greatest enemy in the end! I had many enemies, and all because of the children. Even Schneider reproached me. What were they afraid of? One can tell a child everything, anything. I have often been struck by the fact that parents know their children so little. They should not conceal so much from them. How well even little children understand that their parents conceal things from them, because they consider them too young to understand! Children are capable of giving advice in the most important matters. How can one deceive these dear little birds, when they look at one so sweetly and confidingly? I call them birds because there is nothing in the world better than birds!

“However, most of the people were angry with me about one and the same thing; but Thibaut simply was jealous of me. At first he had wagged his head and wondered how it was that the children understood what I told them so well, and could not learn from him; and he laughed like anything when I replied that neither he nor I could teach them very much, but that they might teach us a good deal.

“How he could hate me and tell scandalous stories about me, living among children as he did, is what I cannot understand. The soul is healed by being with children.
-The Idiot by Fyodor Dostoyevsky

05/10/20

“As to life in a prison, of course there may be two opinions,” said the prince. “I once heard the story of a man who lived twelve years in a prison—I heard it from the man himself. He was one of the persons under treatment with my professor; he had fits, and attacks of melancholy, then he would weep, and once he tried to commit suicide. His life in prison was sad enough; his only acquaintances were spiders and a tree that grew outside his grating—but I think I had better tell you of another man I met last year. There was a very strange feature in this case, strange because of its extremely rare occurrence. This man had once been brought to the scaffold in company with several others, and had had the sentence of death by shooting passed upon him for some political crime. Twenty minutes later he had been reprieved and some other punishment substituted; but the interval between the two sentences, twenty minutes, or at least a quarter of an hour, had been passed in the certainty that within a few minutes he must die. I was very anxious to hear him speak of his impressions during that dreadful time, and I several times inquired of him as to what he thought and felt. He remembered everything with the most accurate and extraordinary distinctness, and declared that he would never forget a single iota of the experience.

“About twenty paces from the scaffold, where he had stood to hear the sentence, were three posts, fixed in the ground, to which to fasten the criminals (of whom there were several). The first three criminals were taken to the posts, dressed in long white tunics, with white caps drawn over their faces, so that they could not see the rifles pointed at them. Then a group of soldiers took their stand opposite to each post. My friend was the eighth on the list, and therefore he would have been among the third lot to go up. A priest went about among them with a cross: and there was about five minutes of time left for him to live.

“He said that those five minutes seemed to him to be a most interminable period, an enormous wealth of time; he seemed to be living, in these minutes, so many lives that there was no need as yet to think of that last moment, so that he made several arrangements, dividing up the time into portions—one for saying farewell to his companions, two minutes for that; then a couple more for thinking over his own life and career and all about himself; and another minute for a last look around. He remembered having divided his time like this quite well. While saying good-bye to his friends he recollected asking one of them some very usual everyday question, and being much interested in the answer. Then having bade farewell, he embarked upon those two minutes which he had allotted to looking into himself; he knew beforehand what he was going to think about. He wished to put it to himself as quickly and clearly as possible, that here was he, a living, thinking man, and that in three minutes he would be nobody; or if somebody or something, then what and where? He thought he would decide this question once for all in these last three minutes. A little way off there stood a church, and its gilded spire glittered in the sun. He remembered staring stubbornly at this spire, and at the rays of light sparkling from it. He could not tear his eyes from these rays of light; he got the idea that these rays were his new nature, and that in three minutes he would become one of them, amalgamated somehow with them.

“The repugnance to what must ensue almost immediately, and the uncertainty, were dreadful, he said; but worst of all was the idea, ‘What should I do if I were not to die now? What if I were to return to life again? What an eternity of days, and all mine! How I should grudge and count up every minute of it, so as to waste not a single instant!’ He said that this thought weighed so upon him and became such a terrible burden upon his brain that he could not bear it, and wished they would shoot him quickly and have done with it.”

The prince paused and all waited, expecting him to go on again and finish the story.

“Is that all?” asked Aglaya.

“All? Yes,” said the prince, emerging from a momentary reverie.

“And why did you tell us this?”

“Oh, I happened to recall it, that’s all! It fitted into the conversation—”

“You probably wish to deduce, prince,” said Alexandra, “that moments of time cannot be reckoned by money value, and that sometimes five minutes are worth priceless treasures. All this is very praiseworthy; but may I ask about this friend of yours, who told you the terrible experience of his life? He was reprieved, you say; in other words, they did restore to him that ‘eternity of days.’ What did he do with these riches of time? Did he keep careful account of his minutes?”

“Oh no, he didn’t! I asked him myself. He said that he had not lived a bit as he had intended, and had wasted many, and many a minute.”
-The Idiot by Fyodor Dostoyevsky

Dermot Kennedy - For Island Fires and Family

05/03/20

“H’m! yes; did you live in Petersburg in former years?”

This good flunkey, in spite of his conscientious scruples, really could not resist continuing such a very genteel and agreeable conversation.

“In Petersburg? Oh no! hardly at all, and now they say so much is changed in the place that even those who did know it well are obliged to relearn what they knew. They talk a good deal about the new law courts, and changes there, don’t they?”

“H’m! yes, that’s true enough. Well now, how is the law over there, do they administer it more justly than here?”

“Oh, I don’t know about that! I’ve heard much that is good about our legal administration, too. There is no capital punishment here for one thing.”

“Is there over there?”

“Yes—I saw an execution in France—at Lyons. Schneider took me over with him to see it.”

“What, did they hang the fellow?”

“No, they cut off people’s heads in France.”

“What did the fellow do?—yell?”

“Oh no—it’s the work of an instant. They put a man inside a frame and a sort of broad knife falls by machinery—they call the thing a guillotine—it falls with fearful force and weight—the head springs off so quickly that you can’t wink your eye in between. But all the preparations are so dreadful. When they announce the sentence, you know, and prepare the criminal and tie his hands, and cart him off to the scaffold—that’s the fearful part of the business. The people all crowd round—even women—though they don’t at all approve of women looking on.”

“No, it’s not a thing for women.”

“Of course not—of course not!—bah! The criminal was a fine intelligent fearless man; Le Gros was his name; and I may tell you—believe it or not, as you like—that when that man stepped upon the scaffold he cried, he did indeed,—he was as white as a bit of paper. Isn’t it a dreadful idea that he should have cried—cried! Whoever heard of a grown man crying from fear—not a child, but a man who never had cried before—a grown man of forty-five years. Imagine what must have been going on in that man’s mind at such a moment; what dreadful convulsions his whole spirit must have endured; it is an outrage on the soul that’s what it is. Because it is said ‘thou shalt not kill,’ is he to be killed because he murdered some one else? No, it is not right, it’s an impossible theory. I assure you, I saw the sight a month ago and it’s dancing before my eyes to this moment. I dream of it, often.”

The prince had grown animated as he spoke, and a tinge of colour suffused his pale face, though his way of talking was as quiet as ever. The servant followed his words with sympathetic interest. Clearly he was not at all anxious to bring the conversation to an end. Who knows? Perhaps he too was a man of imagination and with some capacity for thought.

“Well, at all events it is a good thing that there’s no pain when the poor fellow’s head flies off,” he remarked.

“Do you know, though,” cried the prince warmly, “you made that remark now, and everyone says the same thing, and the machine is designed with the purpose of avoiding pain, this guillotine I mean; but a thought came into my head then: what if it be a bad plan after all? You may laugh at my idea, perhaps—but I could not help its occurring to me all the same. Now with the rack and tortures and so on—you suffer terrible pain of course; but then your torture is bodily pain only (although no doubt you have plenty of that) until you die. But here I should imagine the most terrible part of the whole punishment is, not the bodily pain at all—but the certain knowledge that in an hour,—then in ten minutes, then in half a minute, then now—this very instant—your soul must quit your body and that you will no longer be a man—and that this is certain, certain! That’s the point—the certainty of it. Just that instant when you place your head on the block and hear the iron grate over your head—then—that quarter of a second is the most awful of all.

“This is not my own fantastical opinion—many people have thought the same; but I feel it so deeply that I’ll tell you what I think. I believe that to execute a man for murder is to punish him immeasurably more dreadfully than is equivalent to his crime. A murder by sentence is far more dreadful than a murder committed by a criminal. The man who is attacked by robbers at night, in a dark wood, or anywhere, undoubtedly hopes and hopes that he may yet escape until the very moment of his death. There are plenty of instances of a man running away, or imploring for mercy—at all events hoping on in some degree—even after his throat was cut. But in the case of an execution, that last hope—having which it is so immeasurably less dreadful to die,—is taken away from the wretch and certainty substituted in its place! There is his sentence, and with it that terrible certainty that he cannot possibly escape death—which, I consider, must be the most dreadful anguish in the world. You may place a soldier before a cannon’s mouth in battle, and fire upon him—and he will still hope. But read to that same soldier his death-sentence, and he will either go mad or burst into tears. Who dares to say that any man can suffer this without going mad? No, no! it is an abuse, a shame, it is unnecessary—why should such a thing exist? Doubtless there may be men who have been sentenced, who have suffered this mental anguish for a while and then have been reprieved; perhaps such men may have been able to relate their feelings afterwards. Our Lord Christ spoke of this anguish and dread. No! no! no! No man should be treated so, no man, no man!”
-Fyodor Dostoevsky 1868 The Idiot Part I Chapter 2


Fyodor Mikhailovich Dostoevsky (Фёдор Михайлович Достоевский) In the mid-1840s wrote his first novel, 'Poor Folk', which gained him entry into St. Petersburg's literary circles. Arrested in 1849 for belonging to a literary group that discussed banned books critical of Tsarist Russia, he was sentenced to death but the sentence was commuted at the last moment. He spent four years in a Siberian prison camp, followed by six years of compulsory military service in exile. His 1864 novella 'Notes from Underground' is considered to be one of the first works of existentialist literature.

04/26/20

"Droll thing life is—that mysterious arrangement of merciless logic for a futile purpose. The most you can hope from it is some knowledge of yourself—that comes too late—a crop of unextinguishable regrets. I have wrestled with death. It is the most unexciting contest you can imagine. It takes place in an impalpable greyness, with nothing underfoot, with nothing around, without spectators, without clamour, without glory, without the great desire of victory, without the great fear of defeat, in a sickly atmosphere of tepid scepticism, without much belief in your own right, and still less in that of your adversary. If such is the form of ultimate wisdom, then life is a greater riddle than some of us think it to be. I was within a hair's breadth of the last opportunity for pronouncement, and I found with humiliation that probably I would have nothing to say."
-Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad

03/21/20

I haven't done the best job of keeping up with this life journal.

School has been shut down for three weeks by the Governor DeWine. Tem and I have been staying in doors. She still has to work so she's been on her computer. I've tried to slice up my days into different activities.

Coronavirus has completely shut down our lives.
No school
No sports
No bars
No gym
No library

So I've been going on walks, listening to audio books, and trying to pass the time.

Our flights for spring break, Colorado for Trav's wedding, and India in the summer are all uncertain at this point.

On January 19, 2020, a 35-year-old man presented to an urgent care clinic in Snohomish County, Washington, with a 4-day history of cough and subjective fever. First Positive Tested Case of 2019 Novel Coronavirus in the United States.

It's been two months since then and it doesn't look like the vaccine will be created soon. As of March 17th there were 67 known cases in Ohio.

Ohio primary elections were postponed from March 17th to June 2nd.

01/20/20

Paul's Letter to American Christians - 1956


I would like to share with you an imaginary letter from the pen of the Apostle Paul. The postmark reveals that it comes from the city of Ephesus. After opening the letter I discovered that it was written in Greek rather than English. At the top of the first page was this request: "Please read to your congregation as soon as possible, and then pass on to the other churches."

For several weeks I have worked assiduously with the translation. At times it has been difficult, but now I think I have deciphered its true meaning. May I hasten to say that if in presenting this letter the contents sound strangely Kingian instead of Paulinian, attribute it to my lack of complete objectivity rather than Paul's lack of clarity.

It is miraculous, indeed, that the Apostle Paul should be writing a letter to you and to me nearly 1900 years after his last letter appeared in the New Testament. How this is possible is something of an enigma wrapped in mystery. The important thing, however, is that I can imagine the Apostle Paul writing a letter to American Christians in 1956 A.D. And here is the letter as it stands before me.

I, an apostle of Jesus Christ by the will of God, to you who are in America, Grace be unto you, and peace from God our Father, through our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ.

For many years I have longed to be able to come to see you. I have heard so much of you and of what you are doing. I have heard of the fascinating and astounding advances that you have made in the scientific realm. I have heard of your dashing subways and flashing airplanes. Through your scientific genius you have been able to dwarf distance and place time in chains. You have been able to carve highways through the stratosphere. So in your world you have made it possible to eat breakfast in New York City and dinner in Paris, France. I have also heard of your skyscraping buildings with their prodigious towers steeping heavenward. I have heard of your great medical advances, which have resulted in the curing of many dread plagues and diseases, and thereby prolonged your lives and made for greater security and physical well-being. All of that is marvelous. You can do so many things in your day that I could not do in the Greco-Roman world of my day. In your age you can travel distances in one day that took me three months to travel. That is wonderful. You have made tremendous strides in the area of scientific and technological development.

But America, as I look at you from afar, I wonder whether your moral and spiritual progress has been commensurate with your scientific progress. It seems to me that your moral progress lags behind your scientific progress. Your poet Thoreau used to talk about "improved means to an unimproved end." How often this is true. You have allowed the material means by which you live to outdistance the spiritual ends for which you live. You have allowed your mentality to outrun your morality. You have allowed your civilization to outdistance your culture. Through your scientific genius you have made of the world a neighborhood, but through your moral and spiritual genius you have failed to make of it a brotherhood. So America, I would urge you to keep your moral advances abreast with your scientific advances.

I am impelled to write you concerning the responsibilities laid upon you to live as Christians in the midst of an unChristian world. That is what I had to do. That is what every Christian has to do. But I understand that there are many Christians in America who give their ultimate allegiance to man-made systems and customs. They are afraid to be different. Their great concern is to be accepted socially. They live by some such principle as this: "everybody is doing it, so it must be alright." For so many of you Morality is merely group consensus. In your modern sociological lingo, the mores are accepted as the right ways. You have unconsciously come to believe that right is discovered by taking a sort of Gallup poll of the majority opinion. How many are giving their ultimate allegiance to this way.

But American Christians, I must say to you as I said to the Roman Christians years ago, "Be not conformed to this world, but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind." Or, as I said to the Phillipian Christians, "Ye are a colony of heaven." This means that although you live in the colony of time, your ultimate allegiance is to the empire of eternity. You have a dual citizenry. You live both in time and eternity; both in heaven and earth. Therefore, your ultimate allegiance is not to the government, not to the state, not to nation, not to any man-made institution. The Christian owes his ultimate allegiance to God, and if any earthly institution conflicts with God's will it is your Christian duty to take a stand against it. You must never allow the transitory evanescent demands of man-made institutions to take precedence over the eternal demands of the Almighty God.

I understand that you have an economic system in America known as Capitalism. Through this economic system you have been able to do wonders. You have become the richest nation in the world, and you have built up the greatest system of production that history has ever known. All of this is marvelous. But Americans, there is the danger that you will misuse your Capitalism. I still contend that money can be the root of all evil. It can cause one to live a life of gross materialism. I am afraid that many among you are more concerned about making a living than making a life. You are prone to judge the success of your profession by the index of your salary and the size of the wheel base on your automobile, rather than the quality of your service to humanity.

The misuse of Capitalism can also lead to tragic exploitation. This has so often happened in your nation. They tell me that one tenth of one percent of the population controls more than forty percent of the wealth. Oh America, how often have you taken necessities from the masses to give luxuries to the classes. If you are to be a truly Christian nation you must solve this problem. You cannot solve the problem by turning to communism, for communism is based on an ethical relativism and a metaphysical materialism that no Christian can accept. You can work within the framework of democracy to bring about a better distribution of wealth. You can use your powerful economic resources to wipe poverty from the face of the earth. God never intended for one group of people to live in superfluous inordinate wealth, while others live in abject deadening poverty. God intends for all of his children to have the basic necessities of life, and he has left in this universe "enough and to spare" for that purpose. So I call upon you to bridge the gulf between abject poverty and superfluous wealth.

I would that I could be with you in person, so that I could say to you face to face what I am forced to say to you in writing. Oh, how I long to share your fellowship.

Let me rush on to say something about the church. Americans, I must remind you, as I have said to so many others, that the church is the Body of Christ. So when the church is true to its nature it knows neither division nor disunity. But I am disturbed about what you are doing to the Body of Christ. They tell me that in America you have within Protestantism more than two hundred and fifty six denominations. The tragedy is not so much that you have such a multiplicity of denominations, but that most of them are warring against each other with a claim to absolute truth. This narrow sectarianism is destroying the unity of the Body of Christ. You must come to see that God is neither a Baptist nor a Methodist; He is neither a Presbyterian nor a Episcopalian. God is bigger than all of our denominations. If you are to be true witnesses for Christ, you must come to see that America.

But I must not stop with a criticism of Protestantism. I am disturbed about Roman Catholicism. This church stands before the world with its pomp and power, insisting that it possesses the only truth. It incorporates an arrogance that becomes a dangerous spiritual arrogance. It stands with its noble Pope who somehow rises to the miraculous heights of infallibility when he speaks ex cathedra. But I am disturbed about a person or an institution that claims infallibility in this world. I am disturbed about any church that refuses to cooperate with other churches under the pretense that it is the only true church. I must emphasize the fact that God is not a Roman Catholic, and that the boundless sweep of his revelation cannot be limited to the Vatican. Roman Catholicism must do a great deal to mend its ways.

There is another thing that disturbs me to no end about the American church. You have a white church and you have a Negro church. You have allowed segregation to creep into the doors of the church. How can such a division exist in the true Body of Christ? You must face the tragic fact that when you stand at 11:00 on Sunday morning to sing "All Hail the Power of Jesus Name" and "Dear Lord and Father of all Mankind," you stand in the most segregated hour of Christian America. They tell me that there is more integration in the entertaining world and other secular agencies than there is in the Christian church. How appalling that is.

I understand that there are Christians among you who try to justify segregation on the basis of the Bible. They argue that the Negro is inferior by nature because of Noah's curse upon the children of Ham. Oh my friends, this is blasphemy. This is against everything that the Christian religion stands for. I must say to you as I have said to so many Christians before, that in Christ "there is neither Jew nor Gentile, there is neither bond nor free, there is neither male nor female, for we are all one in Christ Jesus." Moreover, I must reiterate the words that I uttered on Mars Hill: "God that made the world and all things therein . . . hath made of one blood all nations of men for to dwell on all the face of the earth."

So Americans I must urge you to get rid of every aspect of segregation. The broad universalism standing at the center of the gospel makes both the theory and practice of segregation morally unjustifiable. Segregation is a blatant denial of the unity which we all have in Christ. It substitutes an "I-it" relationship for the "I-thou" relationship. The segregator relegates the segregated to the status of a thing rather than elevate him to the status of a person. The underlying philosophy of Christianity is diametrically opposed to the underlying philosophy of segregation, and all the dialectics of the logicians cannot make them lie down together.

I praise your Supreme Court for rendering a great decision just two or three years ago. I am happy to know that so many persons of goodwill have accepted the decision as a great moral victory. But I understand that there are some brothers among you who have risen up in open defiance. I hear that their legislative halls ring loud with such words as "nullification" and "interposition." They have lost the true meaning of democracy and Christianity. So I would urge each of you to plead patiently with your brothers, and tell them that this isn't the way. With understanding goodwill, you are obligated to seek to change their attitudes. Let them know that in standing against integration, they are not only standing against the noble precepts of your democracy, but also against the eternal edicts of God himself. Yes America, there is still the need for an Amos to cry out to the nation: "Let judgement roll down as waters, and righteousness as a mighty stream."

May I say just a word to those of you who are struggling against this evil. Always be sure that you struggle with Christian methods and Christian weapons. Never succumb to the temptation of becoming bitter. As you press on for justice, be sure to move with dignity and discipline, using only the weapon of love. Let no man pull you so low as to hate him. Always avoid violence. If you succumb to the temptation of using violence in your struggle, unborn generations will be the recipients of a long and desolate night of bitterness, and your chief legacy to the future will be an endless reign of meaningless chaos.

In your struggle for justice, let your oppressor know that you are not attempting to defeat or humiliate him, or even to pay him back for injustices that he has heaped upon you. Let him know that you are merely seeking justice for him as well as yourself. Let him know that the festering sore of segregation debilitates the white man as well as the Negro. With this attitude you will be able to keep your struggle on high Christian standards.

Many persons will realize the urgency of seeking to eradicate the evil of segregation. There will be many Negroes who will devote their lives to the cause of freedom. There will be many white persons of goodwill and strong moral sensitivity who will dare to take a stand for justice. Honesty impels me to admit that such a stand will require willingness to suffer and sacrifice. So don't despair if you are condemned and persecuted for righteousness' sake. Whenever you take a stand for truth and justice, you are liable to scorn. Often you will be called an impractical idealist or a dangerous radical. Sometimes it might mean going to jail. If such is the case you must honorably grace the jail with your presence. It might even mean physical death. But if physical death is the price that some must pay to free their children from a permanent life of psychological death, then nothing could be more Christian. Don't worry about persecution America; you are going to have that if you stand up for a great principle. I can say this with some authority, because my life was a continual round of persecutions. After my conversion I was rejected by the disciples at Jerusalem. Later I was tried for heresy at Jerusalem. I was jailed at Philippi, beaten at Thessalonica, mobbed at Ephesus, and depressed at Athens. And yet I am still going. I came away from each of these experiences more persuaded than ever before that "neither death nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor things present, nor things to come . . . shall separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord." I still believe that standing up for the truth of God is the greatest thing in the world. This is the end of life. The end of life is not to be happy. The end of life is not to achieve pleasure and avoid pain. The end of life is to do the will of God, come what may.

I must bring my writing to a close now. Timothy is waiting to deliver this letter, and I must take leave for another church. But just before leaving, I must say to you, as I said to the church at Corinth, that I still believe that love is the most durable power in the world. Over the centuries men have sought to discover the highest good. This has been the chief quest of ethical philosophy. This was one of the big questions of Greek philosophy. The Epicurean and the Stoics sought to answer it; Plato and Aristotle sought to answer it. What is the summon bonum of life? I think I have an answer America. I think I have discovered the highest good. It is love. This principle stands at the center of the cosmos. As John says, "God is love." He who loves is a participant in the being of God. He who hates does not know God.

So American Christians, you may master the intricacies of the English language. You may possess all of the eloquence of articulate speech. But even if you "speak with the tongues of man and angels, and have not love, you are become as sounding brass, or a tinkling cymbal."

You may have the gift of prophecy and understanding all mysteries. You may be able to break into the storehouse of nature and bring out many insights that men never dreamed were there. You may ascend to the heights of academic achievement, so that you will have all knowledge. You may boast of your great institutions of learning and the boundless extent of your degrees. But all of this amounts to absolutely nothing devoid of love.

But even more Americans, you may give your goods to feed the poor. You may give great gifts to charity. You may tower high in philanthropy. But if you have not love it means nothing. You may even give your body to be burned, and die the death of a martyr. Your spilt blood may be a symbol of honor for generations yet unborn, and thousands may praise you as history's supreme hero. But even so, if you have not love your blood was spilt in vain. You must come to see that it is possible for a man to be self-centered in his self-denial and self-righteous in his self-sacrifice. He may be generous in order to feed his ego and pious in order to feed his pride. Man has the tragic capacity to relegate a heightening virtue to a tragic vice. Without love benevolence becomes egotism, and martyrdom becomes spiritual pride.

So the greatest of all virtues is love. It is here that we find the true meaning of the Christian faith. This is at bottom the meaning of the cross. The great event on Calvary signifies more than a meaningless drama that took place on the stage of history. It is a telescope through which we look out into the long vista of eternity and see the love of God breaking forth into time. It is an eternal reminder to a power drunk generation that love is most durable power in the world, and that it is at bottom the heartbeat of the moral cosmos. Only through achieving this love can you expect to matriculate into the university of eternal life.

I must say goodby now. I hope this letter will find you strong in the faith. It is probable that I will not get to see you in America, but I will meet you in God's eternity. And now unto him who is able to keep us from falling, and lift us from the fatigue of despair to the buoyancy of hope, from the midnight of desperation to the daybreak of joy, to him be power and authority, forever and ever. Amen.

2019 - Rediscovering Lost Values - 1954
2018 - Give Us The Ballot - 1957
2017 - The Three Evils of Society 1967
2016 - The other America 1967
2015 - Why Jesus Called a Man a Fool 1967
2014 - But if Not 1967
2013 - A speech at Riverside church