Hope Unstoppable

Take me up and hold me gently
Raise me up and hold me high
Through the nights under darkness
Will come a day when we will fly
And although we've been rejected
And although we've been outcast
We will find a new tomorrow
When we come to rest at last
And we will stand there proudly
And we will never walk alone
And we will be returned
Back to our home

There's a River on the Run

Be Realistic: Demand the Impossible--Slogan from 1968 PragueSpring

The Future

"Every time I see an adult on a bicycle, I no longer despair for the future of the human race." H. G. Wells

Tune in, tune out, goodbye, goodnight.

People talk about vocations a lot--vocations to religious life or married life, vocations to a job. But rarely in that last class of vocations do people talk about practical side of things. If you truly treat your job as a vocation what does that mean.

The Archbishop of Denver wrote a very interesting piece discussing that very question in regard to the news media. For the newspaper and news stations hold colossal sway over what information the public receives and this power ought to be accompanied with a sense of responsibility and attempts to reports the news accurately and fairly, to do research into the facts and back story and to follow leads.

To often the news seems instead like a logo, an advertisement, something over sensualized and trying to sell us on something. Our vocation then as readers of the news is to intelligent and engaged with our sources--particularly with the nameless persons behind most of the news whose opinions and prejudices are obscured by their anonymity and the requirements of the form.

As the Archbishop says:

We need to remember that material progress is never an unmixed blessing. It gives, and it takes away. And it always has unintended consequences, which means we need to be more – not less – vigilant about the way our news media form us, and how their influence shapes the content of our public life. Just as a rich society can grow callous to the suffering of the poor, so an information-addicted society can lose track of the purpose of its information. In the case of the news profession, its main purpose is to accurately inform a public dialogue that pursues the good, the right and the true.

The Song Writer Cannot Hear

"I will take fate by the throat; it will not bend me completely to its will." Beethoven

The Siren's Song that is Your Madness

Blackbird singing in the dead of night,

take these broken wings and learn to fly.

All your life

you were only waiting for this moment to arise.

Blackbird singing in the dead of night,

take these sunken eyes and learn to see.

All your life

you were only waiting for this moment to be free.

Blackbird fly, blackbird fly,

into the light of the dark, black night.

Blackbird singing in the dead of night,

take these broken wings and learn to fly.

All your life,

you were only waiting for this moment to arise,

you were only waiting for this moment to arise,

you were only waiting for this moment to arise.

requiem for a dying song

I've been a soldier and a slave. I've seen my comrades fall in battle or die more slowly under the lash in Africa. I've held them in my arms at the final moment. These were men who saw life as it is, yet they died despairing. No glory, no brave last words, only their eyes, filled with confusion, questioning "Why?" I don't think they were wondering why they were dying, but why they had ever lived. When life itself seems lunatic, who knows where madness lies? To surrender dreams - -this may be madness; to seek treasure where there is only trash. Too much sanity may be madness! But maddest of all - -to see life as it is and not as it should be--Don Quixote

Strange Music

Other loves may sink and settle, other loves may loose and slack,  

But I wander like a minstrel with a harp upon his back,  

Though the harp be on my bosom, though I finger and I fret, 

Still, my hope is all before me: for I cannot play it yet.  

In your strings is hid a music that no hand hath e'er let fall, 

In your soul is sealed a pleasure that you have not known at all;  

Pleasure subtle as your spirit, strange and slender as your frame,  

Fiercer than the pain that folds you, softer than your sorrow's name.  

Not as mine, my soul's annointed, not as mine the rude and light  

Easy mirth of many faces, swaggering pride of song and fight;  

Something stranger, something sweeter, something waiting you afar,  

Secret as your stricken senses, magic as your sorrows are.  

But on this, God's harp supernal, stretched but to be stricken once,  

Hoary time is a beginner, Life a bungler, Death a dunce.  

But I will not fear to match them-no, by God, I will not fear,  

I will learn you, I will play you and the stars stand still to hear. 

--G. K. Chesterton

Just take a leap and your free

Look before you leap. It seems to me that there is far to much looking and not enough leaping going around. Now, I am not suggesting that carefully weighing one's options and being all rational is always a bad thing. Rather I am saying that, for most of life's questions, looking is unnecessary and that this looking can not only make one not leap, but can also detract from the leap causing one to be so anxious about whether he is going to land on solid ground that he doesn't feel the wind on his face as he falls.

Why do we feel the need to attempt to think through our decisions when for most of them we already know the answer. As much as the expressions, your gut feeling and you know it in your heart, are ridiculous they are often true. It's the same as with one's conscience-- that one already knows what is right and what is wrong, that little to no thought is actually required. However even I know that thought is rarely a bad thing, so why am I recommending not to think? It's not that we shouldn't think and use reason, it's that we shouldn't get so worried that our fears cause us not to live. It is so easy to let our troubles control us so that we lose the beauty of each day. We no longer see the grace with which the sparrow flys, no longer hear the glory of the sparrow's song.

And so one should not look before they leap, but instead leap and then look and then laugh.