I strive for balance

I find myself thinking of my grandmother. She was kind, good, and loving. I want, so much, to be the kind of grandmother to my grandkids (and great-grands) that she was to me. But I have a mean streak. I think it comes from her husband, or maybe her son. They were both troubled souls. I don't want to be like them.  

So I try harder to be good, saving the meanness for those who deserve it. Who knows, perhaps fighting back is a gift? Am I diminished or enhanced by trying to control this darkness? Anger has proven both useful and righteous from time to time.

I know I cannot swallow my anger whole or I would lose my mind. It is important for me to digest it bit by bit. I sing to it until it falls asleep. Then I try to put it to bed without waking it up.

My faith has been tempered in Hell.

“My faith has been tempered in Hell. My faith has emerged from the flames of the crematoria, from the concrete of the gas chamber. I have seen that it is not man who is impotent in the struggle against evil, but the power of evil that is impotent in the struggle against man. The powerlessness of kindness, of senseless kindness, is the secret of its immortality. It can never be conquered. The more stupid, the more senseless, the more helpless it may seem, the vaster it is. Evil is impotent before it. The prophets, religious teachers, reformers, social and political leaders are impotent before it. This dumb, blind love is man's meaning.

Human history is not the battle of good struggling to overcome evil.  It is a battle fought by a great evil struggling to crush a small kernel of human kindness.  But if what is human in human beings has not been destroyed even now, then evil will never conquer."

--Vasily Grossman, Life and Fate

Turning 65

I turned 65 recently. Over the past few months I have drawn up a will, signed up for Medicare, re-balanced my retirement investments, and bought dental insurance (finally). I worked long and hard building a reasonable life for myself and my family. The building part of my life is over and it seems like the external part of my life is as "in place" as it is going to get. Now that I am 65 I want to change my focus. I want to take care of my internal self. I have the time, that's for sure. I believe I have the energy, too. I just need to change my attitude. Where there is fear, I need to cultivate strength. Call me naive, but I think it might be as simple as that.

Paris, 13 Nov 2015

“Men never do evil so completely and cheerfully as when they do it from religious conviction.”
― Blaise Pascal, Pensées   

Like everyone else, I was glued to the TV and my iPad last night hoping for more information.  Hoping for clarity, I guess.  I had a hard time falling sleep, thinking hard about the families who had received the bad news that their family members would not be coming home from the concert or the restaurant.  I thought of good and evil.  I wondered about the nature of both.

 

“Remember that all through history, there have been tyrants and murderers, and for a time, they seem invincible. But in the end, they always fall. Always.”
― Mahatma Gandhi, The Story of My Experiments With Truth