The Love You Take is Equal to the Love You Make

For all my friends and acquaintances who give a damn and live that out by making good art, good writing, good photographs, good science, good kids, good government, good food, good health, good music, or good-whatever-you-were-created-to-do, I offer this gorgeous poem by Mary Oliver.  Blessings on you all!

When Death Comes

When death comes
like the hungry bear in autumn;
when death comes and takes all the bright coins from his purse

to buy me, and snaps the purse shut;
when death comes
like the measle-pox;
when death comes
like an iceberg between the shoulder blades,

I want to step through the door full of curiosity, wondering:
what is it going to be like, that cottage of darkness?

And therefore I look upon everything
as a brotherhood and a sisterhood,
and I look upon time as no more than an idea,
and I consider eternity as another possibility,

and I think of each life as a flower, as common
as a field daisy, and as singular,

and each body a lion of courage, and something
precious to the earth.

When it's over, I want to say; all my life
I was a bride married to amazement.
I was the bridegroom, taking the world into my arms.

When it's over, I don't want to wonder
if I have made of my life something particular, and real.
I don't want to find myself sighing and frightened,
or full of argument.

I don't want to end simply having visited this world.

                                                  -- Mary Oliver

Today's front yard critter count:
Deer: 2
Raccoons: 0
Squirrels: 2
Chipmunk: 1
Frogs: bazillions

Risk and Willed Ignorance

I learned as a young lawyer to consider risk when making plans.  There are two parts to risk: the odds that something will happen and how disastrous that something might turn out to be.  A 1% risk may sound small until it's a 1% risk of, oh I don't know, getting gunned down in the next 60 seconds.  Then a 1% risk sounds pretty darned high.

I mention this because I'm puzzled about comments some friends have made recently on Facebook.  On days when the weather is unseasonably cold here in the Pacific Northwest, I see gleeful postings like "Must be global warming.  NOT!" or "Global warming, WHAT global warming?"

The actual problem is global climate change and not simply global warming, and weather that's weirdly cold can be evidence that the climate is indeed changing. This winter Rush Limbaugh announced that climate change was a hoax because the weather in Washington, D.C. was cold, all the while failing to notice that the Vancouver Olympics had to truck in snow and Seattle had its warmest January on record.  The problem is the larger trends over time in multiple locations around the globe, not just what we see when out the kitchen window.  So at a superficial level what troubles me about these blithe triumphalists is that they appear to getting their scientific information from featherbrained bumper stickers and bad sermons.

But at a deeper level what troubles me is the apparent absence of any sort of risk analysis.  As Bill McKibben recites in his wonderful new book "Eaarth: Making a Life on a Tough New Planet" (and no that's not a typo), in October 2007 the Arctic ice cap was 1.1 million square miles smaller than it had ever been in recorded history.  In 2009 scientists saw the first tundra fires ever.  The tropics are moving north and south, pushing the arid subtopics ahead of them, causing droughts for millions of people.  As a result of droughts, worldwide wheat, corn, and barley yields are down by 40 million tons a year.

And so on.

And so on.

Given these sorts of facts, I wonder what sort of risk analysis is going on in my friends' heads.  Many of them have children and grandchildren.  Assume for the sake of argument that the facts Bill McKibben lists are not actual facts but merely "might be" facts.  Assume furthermore that there is only a 1% chance that these "might be" facts are true.  (They actually ARE true but we're just playing with a hypothetical here.)  It seems to me that a 1% chance of ruining the one and only planet we've been given is a colossally unacceptable risk.

So I wonder if for some people critical thinking and risk analysis might be entirely beside the point.  Is it possible that folks start from the premise that they don't WANT to change a damn thing and they therefore construct a narrative in their own heads so they don't HAVE to change a damn thing?  Risk analysis? WHAT risk analysis?  Don't need no stinking risk analysis.  I want my S.U.V!!!  I want all my cheap plastic crap!  I want strawberries in January!  And to hell with everyone else....

On a lighter note, the picture up above is of a series of stair-stepped beaver dams near Mt. St. Helens.  We counted five big dams and two little dams.  Three vultures circled up above, checking to see if we were still moving (we were), followed by two ravens checking to see if we had bologna sandwiches to share (we didn't).

Today's front yard critter count
Deer: 0
Raccoons: 0
Squirrels: 1

Thinking About Borders. And Laws. And Fear

I'm feeling in need of some fine poetry this evening.  For your viewing pleasure I offer the following:


                        Confession

The Nazi within me thinks it's time to take charge.
The world's a mess; people are crazy.
The Nazi within me wants windows shut tight,
new locks put on the doors.  There's too much
fresh air, too much coming and going.
The Nazi within me wants more respect.  He wants
the only TV camera, the only bank account,
the only really pretty girl.  The Nazi within me
wants to be boss of traffic and traffic lights.
People drive too fast; they take up too much space.
The Nazi within me thinks people are getting away
with murder.  He wants to be boss of murder.
He wants to be boss of bananas, boss of white bread.
The Nazi within me wants uniforms for everyone.
He wants them to wash their hands, sit up straight,
pay strict attention.  He wants to make certain
they say yes when he says yes, no when he says no.
He imagines everybody sitting in straight chairs,
people all over the world sitting in straight chairs.
Are you ready? he asks them.  They say they are ready.
Are you ready to be happy? he asks them.  The say
they are ready to be happy.  The Nazi within me wants
everyone to be happy but not too happy and definitely
not noisy.  No singing, no dancing, no carrying on.

                                           --Stephen Dobyns

Today's front yard critter count:
Deer: 0
Raccoons: 0

Grifters and Pundits

My friend Ginger alerted me to the latest incident of Fox News brazenly falsifying what the network humorously refers to as "the news."  This time the whopper concerned President Obama's nuclear arms treaty with Russia -- evidently Fox reported that the treaty leaves America defenseless by eliminating all nuclear weapons when, in fact, the treaty leaves two thirds of the weapons unaffected.  As despicable as this sort of counterfeit reporting is, the dance of deception requires two partners -- the grifter and the easy mark.  It's apparent what the deceivers get out of the transaction: power, money, the win, the sly superiority of the liar.  But what do the willfully deceived get?  They get to escape.  They (and by the term "they," I sometimes mean "me') get to escape knowledge of the truth.  Knowledge, and the responsibility that comes with knowledge -- the responsibility to be accountable, to risk one's own preconceived notions, prejudices, and comfort, in the interest of what is true and good.  If we want this flight from accountability, the dance of deception requires us to pretend to believe what the network pretends is the news.

Where is Samaria Anyway?

Like a passing motorist who can't drag her eyes away from a bad accident, I continue to watch with astonishment the more feverish reactions to health care reform playing out across America. What I find most puzzling are people who call themselves Christian but nonetheless seem to have forgotten the Parable of the Good Samaritan and similar mandates to care for the oppressed and the stranger.   If faced with a gravely ill child in their workplace, neighborhood or church, even the most vehement health care opponents would probably throw a bake sale or pass the hat to pay for treatment.  Is the problem an inability or unwillingness to make the empathetic leap from a child in their own tribe to a child in another tribe? Or do they just love their tribe more than they love their God?  I'm mystified.

I don't have a parable to share, but I do have a poem from the most excellent Wendell Berry.  I offer especially the last stanza.

              Questionnaire


1. How much poison are you willing
    to eat for the success of the free
    market and global trade? Please
    name your preferred poisons.

2. For the sake of goodness, how much
    evil are you willing to do?
    Fill in the following blanks
    with the names of your favorite
    evils and acts of hatred.

3. What sacrifices are you prepared
    to make for culture and civilization?
    Please list the monuments, shrines,
    and works of art you would
    most willingly destroy.

4. In the name of patriotism and
    the flag, how much of our beloved
    land are you willing to desecrate?
    List in the following spaces
    the mountains, rivers, towns, farms
    you could most readily do without.

5. State briefly the ideas, ideals, or hopes,
    the energy sources, the kinds of security,
    for which you would kill a child.
    Name, please, the children whom
    you would be willing to kill.


Today's front yard critter count:
Raccoons: 6
Deer: 1
Llamas: 0

If Ignorance is Bliss, Why Aren't More People Happy?

Whew! These have been a tough couple of weeks in America.  Snake mean and brick stupid aren't anything new around here but it's been quite awhile since we've had our national patience tested by this many overwrought, ill-informed fellow citizens. Hurling slurs at congressmen, making death threats, plotting to kill police officers  to spark a religious war. Please, people, go crack open an icy beer, put a cold washcloth on your heads, read the Sermon on the Mount, scratch the dog behind his ears, and relax. 

In honor of taking a deep breath and pausing between stimulus and response, here's a poem to ease you into tomorrow:

O Karma, Dharma, pudding and pie,

gimme a break before I die:

grant me wisdom, will, & wit,

purity, probity, pluck, & grit.

Trustworthy, loyal, helpful, kind,

gimme great abs & a steel-trap mind,

and forgive me, Ye Gods, some humble advice --

these little blessings would suffice

to beget an earthly paradise:

make the bad people good --

and the good people nice;

and before our world goes over the brink,

teach the believers how to think.

                                    --Philip Appleman

The Tombstone List

Do you ever hear an aphorism and think "Yes!  Exactly!  I want that on my tombstone! (No? Perhaps you're not as enamored of getting in the last word as I am!) One of the big contenders for Ann's Tombstone List is "never mistake a clear view for a short distance." I like the heady split second of mental suspension before the meaning of the adage clicks into place.  I also like the way it honors aspiring to the heights while warning that getting there may not be easy.  The maxim spares us from false optimism and teaches us what real change can require.  I find that sort of realism to be downright bracing!

Today's front yard critter count:
Raccoons: 5 (Crabby Mama and the 4 Young Adults)
Deer: 4 (all does)
Mouse: 1