A cute young TV news reporter siad on the morning news that a new pope might be elected very soon, that no papal election in this century had tasken more than 5 days. WTF? There has only been one papal election in this century. That was the election of Pope Benedict XVI.
Why is a pope elcted, anyway? Why doesn’t God just open the sky and announce who He has selected? As it is, it takes 77 out of 115 Cardinals to elect a new pope, when a single word from the sky daddy would settle the issue rather quickly.
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An opinion in today’s Wichita Eagle says that if President obama were to walk on water, his critics would complain that he led with the wrong foot.
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Chris Kobach is happy that the Kansas legislature is closer to crafting and enacting a voter fraud law. After asll, there were 11 cases of voter fraud in the 2010 elction. That is almost an avalanche of fraud f the kind that could totally corrupt an election.
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On Saturday, a friend posted the essence of a dream he’d had the night before. I won’t repeat the dream, not here, not now. I will say that it was an interesting dream, related in a way that I could easily close my eyes and see what my friend had seen. His words became my eyes. There was some sense of suspense, a subtle hint foreboding, set in a near-monochromatic milieu.
I remember when Katherine Anne Porter (1890-1980)came to visit Wichita State University. She was one of America’s premier story tellers. Her address that evening was a defense of Circe.
Porter’s single novel, A Ship of Fools, took her almost 30 years to complete. Published in 1962, it was made into a movie in 1965. It is still worth watching.
One of Porter’s short stories was called, The Grave. In the south, where land is often soggy, many graveyards have small mausoleums or elevated graves. The story is about a young girl and her younger brother who discover that the door to a mausoleum is unlocked. They enter and soon Paul, finds a small, thin gold ring. Miranda discovers a small silver dove. The girl, covetous of the ring, cajoles her brother into exchanging his ring for her dove. That is the essence of the plot.
At her lecture, I listened as Katherine Anne Porter explained how one critic, in reviewing the short story, had glowing words about what a wonderful allegory this was – a golden ring, the symbol of eternal and never ending love, and the dove, a symbol of peace, came to represent love between a brother and a sister; as well as love between all mankind should be.
Katherine said it was one of the best reviews she ever received, but it was wrong. Her story was actually a true life tale of an event in her young life, when she and her brother had actually entered a open mausoleum, found those two objects and exchanged them, and then went home. Period.
Now I return to my friend’s dream. There are those who claim they can interpret dreams. Perhaps they can. I can’t. And yet, I did try to tell my friend what I could weave from the whole-cloth he proffered in his post.
My fried is an engineer. He is also an architect. He has no formal training as an architect, but his engineering designs and concepts have to be constructed, first in his mind, then on paper, then transferred into a concrete, material object.
We are all architects. We are that from the moment we take alphabet blocks and form simple words – cat, dog, owl. We are that when he use Lego’s or Lincoln Logs. We are hat when we play something like SimCity. We are that when we write and make letters into words, then phrases, then make into stories, poems, songs, novels.
I would love to see my friend’s dream produced as a short film by some university students or Indy film makers. I’d like to have him hand out his dream, in written form, to other people, with a request that they interpret the dream, or create a scenario using his words as a basis for a poem or a short story.
My friend could design a rocket ship that could go to Saturn and back, but beyond his professional gifts lies a man with visions, and romance, and compassion. What a great conversation starter – “Please, will you read this and tell me what you think? I’d like to know what you think.”
In a word going far a field from connectivity by using text abbreviations and bumper sticker phrases, conversation is becoming a lost art. Sharing ideas and concepts seems less important than seeking instant inclusion with a clique of cookie cutter people with cliché responses and insincere affectations.
In that world, my friend has more important things to offer than mere conformity.
I can’t make more of my friend’s dream than knowing he dreamed it.
That said, I can mold his words into a creation of my own. Others can do the same – use his words to create their own interpretation. But, in the process there is the link to the man himself. In the simple question – what do you make of this?” – there is an invitation to cross the threshold into a multifaceted realm of limitless opportunities.
What do I know, anyway. I’m old. Maybe the human race no longer needs love, compassion, kindness. Maybe we need only travel on the surface, ignoring depths where hearts and brains dwell. “Do you fancy a fuck, or another Jagermeister shot? And how about those 49-ers? Hell of game, that!”
I ride a single grain of sand upon the sands of time. I’ll be gone before the end of time. For now, I need to pamper my cats.
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Albert Camus:
“Don’t walk behind me; I may not lead. Do not walk in front of me; I may not follow. Just walk beside me and be my friend.”
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