Thanks for the Memories

When I was a child, I spoke as a child. Now I am an old man; I write as an old man. Early on, I rode a bicycle. Now I recycle. oh, yes, household detritus and worn-out stuff gets properly handled for the sake of the planet that I grew up on. But in a wider perspective, I recycle the stuff of my 73 years into whatever comes to mind . . . whatever I find, in that grey matter up there at the crown of creation. Creation is an ongoing miracle that I did not invent; Creator created me, and I make the best of what I got; been doing it for 73 years now. When I was younger, a fellow named McGuire came along and wrote a song, “Eve of Destruction.” I see what he was getting at, Things were dire for McGuire when Kruschev and Kennedy were rehearsing Russian roulette. I remember. I remember. After spending part of my life in construction, I have decided that is generally better than destruction, although, truth be told, sometimes you have to tear down before you can build up. Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation wasn’t fulfilled around his mission required sending soldiers to tear down the slave establishment that my southern forebears had been constructing for a couple of centuries. Life comes shining, we notice, from the East unto the West. Dreams may culminate in Fulfillment, or . . . maybe not. But you gotta give it a shot. And it’s funny; sometimes its New to New; sometimes its New to Old to New. And, for sure, kids have a lot to do with it. There was a time when I was one of the New Generation; now I’m just an old guy, like my wife’s gramps was, back in the day, The Blood Sweat and Tears singer sang. . . or maybe it was the the Chicago Transit Authority singer (I’m writing this in Chicago) who sang: “Give me my freedom for as long as i live; all I ask of living is to have no chains on me, and all I ask of dying is to go naturally . . . and when I die, when I’m dead, dead and gone. . . there’ll be one child born and a world to carry on, a world to carry on. Well, in our case, its three who carry on, and so on and so on. Neil Young sang to and Old Man to “take a look at my life; I’m a lot like you.” Now that I am on old guy, I do see young folks out there in the hinterlands, living life. . . well, we’re all the same really, but not really. . . at least, us Americans, we’re a special breed. i mean—not that we’re any better than anybody else—but we did inherit something special when Jefferson wrote, back in the day: “. . . all Men are created equal; they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness.” And that has worked well for us. It still does. And there’s so much good stuff to ruminate about. At the Simon and Garfunkel show, a couple of nights ago, the two guys there were singing the old song, “Old Friends” who “sit on their park bench like bookends; a newspaper blown through the grass falls on the round toes of the old shoes of the Old Friends. And come to think of it. . . that’s important to understand: Friends are very important in Life. I mean, next to husband or wife, and the young’uns that come along, friends are one of the most precious blessings we have. When I was a teenager, I remember listening to Judy Collins, on—I think it was the “Wildflowers” album, “My father always promised us that we would live in France; we’d go boating on the Seine, and I would learn to dance. We lived in Ohio then; he worked in the mines. . .now I remember . . . the setting sun . . . in my father’s eyes.” Or something like that. Now I’m a fathe—grandfather no less—remembering—or trying to—all of it. But I have also learned that, if you want to live a quality life, you should tap into the ancient wisdom, such as: the ancient prophet comes to mind, Jeremiah. He went to a potter’s shop because the Lord told him to. When he got there, he watched what the potter was doing. And life is a lot like that: we are clay in the Great YWHW Potter’s hands, spinning on the wheels of time, chance, providence and the grace of God. To get a glimpse of the final phase—where we’re headed in the big picture, check out Revelation 5:9: https://open.spotify.com/track/4t3dyoa2vpmTqvZ2uKuL9W?si=4d13b30bc6b34974