The military
Distinct from the rest of us
Trained, ready to kill
Distinct from the rest of us
Trained, ready to kill
Sunday, February 6, 2011
Monday, February 15, 2010
After Every War
THE END AND THE BEGINNING
by Wislawa Szymborska
After every war
someone has to tidy up.
Things won't pick
themselves up, after all.
Someone has to shove
the rubble to the roadsides
so the carts loaded with corpses
can get by.
Someone has to trudge
through sludge and ashes,
through the sofa springs,
the shards of glass,
the bloody rags.
Someone has to lug the post
to prop the wall,
someone has to glaze the window,
set the door in its frame.
No sound bites, no photo opportunities,
and it takes years.
All the cameras have gone
to other wars.
The bridges need to be rebuilt,
the railroad stations, too.
Shirtsleeves will be rolled
to shreds.
Someone, broom in hand,
still remembers how it was.
Someone else listens, nodding
his unshattered head.
But others are bound to be bustling nearby
who'll find all that
a little boring.
From time to time someone still must
dig up a rusted argument
from underneath a bush
and haul it off to the dump.
Those who knew
what this was all about
must make way for those
who know little.
And less than that.
And at last nothing less than nothing.
Someone has to lie there
in the grass that covers up
the causes and effects
with a cornstalk in his teeth,
gawking at clouds.
by Wislawa Szymborska
After every war
someone has to tidy up.
Things won't pick
themselves up, after all.
Someone has to shove
the rubble to the roadsides
so the carts loaded with corpses
can get by.
Someone has to trudge
through sludge and ashes,
through the sofa springs,
the shards of glass,
the bloody rags.
Someone has to lug the post
to prop the wall,
someone has to glaze the window,
set the door in its frame.
No sound bites, no photo opportunities,
and it takes years.
All the cameras have gone
to other wars.
The bridges need to be rebuilt,
the railroad stations, too.
Shirtsleeves will be rolled
to shreds.
Someone, broom in hand,
still remembers how it was.
Someone else listens, nodding
his unshattered head.
But others are bound to be bustling nearby
who'll find all that
a little boring.
From time to time someone still must
dig up a rusted argument
from underneath a bush
and haul it off to the dump.
Those who knew
what this was all about
must make way for those
who know little.
And less than that.
And at last nothing less than nothing.
Someone has to lie there
in the grass that covers up
the causes and effects
with a cornstalk in his teeth,
gawking at clouds.
Tuesday, February 2, 2010
Following Jesus
If we follow Jesus Christ, neither by example nor by teaching will he lead us to war or violence. "Non-violence can always find support in Jesus Christ, the use of violence in an emergency can find support in reason." (Hans Kung) Or should we revise Kung to read "find support in rationalization?" And how do we define, in terms of Jesus, "emergency?" Surely unjust crucifixion constituted an emergency.
Saturday, February 16, 2008
Dreams and Reality
Misters Bush and Rumsfeld had a dream: clear Iraq of weapons of mass destruction, displace Saddam Hussein, reconcile the warring two or three religious/ethnic groups, impose democracy, and ease Iraqi women toward freedom and a mild Western feminism. This was their dream.
Walt Disney said: “If you can dream it, you can do it.” These men dreamed it and believed they could do it. They dreamed it; they believed it, but have they done it? They have not. At least not yet. Mr. McCain optimistically believes it can be done, at least by the end of the century.
Jan Zwicky, Canadian poet and philosopher, in her poem, “The Geology of Norway,” writes:
A dream
is a carving knife
and the scar it opens in the world
is history.
The Bush dream has carved a virulent and lingering scar in 21st Century history–a festering scar, highly resistant to healing.
Walt Disney said: “If you can dream it, you can do it.” These men dreamed it and believed they could do it. They dreamed it; they believed it, but have they done it? They have not. At least not yet. Mr. McCain optimistically believes it can be done, at least by the end of the century.
Jan Zwicky, Canadian poet and philosopher, in her poem, “The Geology of Norway,” writes:
A dream
is a carving knife
and the scar it opens in the world
is history.
The Bush dream has carved a virulent and lingering scar in 21st Century history–a festering scar, highly resistant to healing.
After the War
After the war–
There is always the after–
The hills and the fields,
The rivers and the green growing flora
Will recover--
After a century or two.
The corporals and the colonels
Who survive and return to their homes,
The attached civilians who return
The battleground civilians who stay–
Many will not live long enough
To recover.
Even were they to become
Centenarians.
After the war
Trauma lives on.
After the vines and grasses
Emerge green
Through cracks in the rubble,
After: rage, and images
Recurrent will emerge
Dangerous, destructive, and disabling.
After the war.
There is always the after–
The hills and the fields,
The rivers and the green growing flora
Will recover--
After a century or two.
The corporals and the colonels
Who survive and return to their homes,
The attached civilians who return
The battleground civilians who stay–
Many will not live long enough
To recover.
Even were they to become
Centenarians.
After the war
Trauma lives on.
After the vines and grasses
Emerge green
Through cracks in the rubble,
After: rage, and images
Recurrent will emerge
Dangerous, destructive, and disabling.
After the war.
Saturday, December 1, 2007
It Will Never Happen
“There was never a horse that couldn’t be rode,
and never a cowboy that couldn’t be throwed.”
–Old Cowboy Saying.
“No teacher at this university has received tenure in twenty years; it will never happen again. The school changed administration and the new president established tenure. Within a dozen years, twenty-three of us were tenured. On the other hand, the administration changed again, and the new president intimidated the faculty assembly into voting against continuing the tenure policy. Tenure ceased to be policy.
Repeatedly I was told in my last years before retirement that tenure was a thing of the past. It would never be reinstated. Based on more than three hundred years of tenure policy, and based on three decades of my own experience, I realize that tenure can be re-established, or revoked as policy at any time in the future. As the wise ones have said, “never say never.”
Small church-related universities and other small universities hung on for years requiring their faculty to teach a load of fifteen hours in the classroom time per week. The standard workload in American universities has long been twelve classroom hours. For two decades I, along with others, lobbied for a twelve-hour workload. Repeatedly we were told that it was not feasible on our budget. We were told it would never happen. The last few years of my classroom career, at the same school, we enjoyed a new workload: twelve hours.
You never know when the never is going to come about. Just remember that it is always possible, often when least expected. Once upon a time, the United States had never lost a war. Then we did. No invader has ever established a physical presence in the United States. The United States is both “the horse that couldn’t be rode,” and “the cowboy that could never be throwed.” This, we have taken for granted. But “to take anything for granted is to begin to lose it.”
No, the old cowboy word of wisdom holds true. “There was never a horse that couldn’t be rode, and never a cowboy that couldn’t be throwed.”
and never a cowboy that couldn’t be throwed.”
–Old Cowboy Saying.
“No teacher at this university has received tenure in twenty years; it will never happen again. The school changed administration and the new president established tenure. Within a dozen years, twenty-three of us were tenured. On the other hand, the administration changed again, and the new president intimidated the faculty assembly into voting against continuing the tenure policy. Tenure ceased to be policy.
Repeatedly I was told in my last years before retirement that tenure was a thing of the past. It would never be reinstated. Based on more than three hundred years of tenure policy, and based on three decades of my own experience, I realize that tenure can be re-established, or revoked as policy at any time in the future. As the wise ones have said, “never say never.”
Small church-related universities and other small universities hung on for years requiring their faculty to teach a load of fifteen hours in the classroom time per week. The standard workload in American universities has long been twelve classroom hours. For two decades I, along with others, lobbied for a twelve-hour workload. Repeatedly we were told that it was not feasible on our budget. We were told it would never happen. The last few years of my classroom career, at the same school, we enjoyed a new workload: twelve hours.
You never know when the never is going to come about. Just remember that it is always possible, often when least expected. Once upon a time, the United States had never lost a war. Then we did. No invader has ever established a physical presence in the United States. The United States is both “the horse that couldn’t be rode,” and “the cowboy that could never be throwed.” This, we have taken for granted. But “to take anything for granted is to begin to lose it.”
No, the old cowboy word of wisdom holds true. “There was never a horse that couldn’t be rode, and never a cowboy that couldn’t be throwed.”
Sunday, November 4, 2007
Wendell Berry 2
". . . .
And now his mighty government
wants to help everybody
even if it has to kill them
to do it--like the fellow in the story
who helped his neighbor to Heaven:
'I heard the Lord calling him,
Judge, and I sent him on.'
According to the government
everybody is just waiting
to be given a chance
to be like us."
--Wendell Berry
What nation is next in line for us to move on? The line is long, the line of those who need someone to give them the freedom that comes with an imposed democracy. Maybe Myanmar (Burma)? They held a legitimate democratic election and chose a president: Aung San Suu Kyi, but a military junta has kept her under house arrest for most of the past sixteen years. It is one of the most oppressive governments in the world. Just the sort for us to go in and set things straight.
I started to write that we are good at that sort of thing, but reality immediately invaded my mind. We are not very good at that sort of thing. But we do like to try.
And now his mighty government
wants to help everybody
even if it has to kill them
to do it--like the fellow in the story
who helped his neighbor to Heaven:
'I heard the Lord calling him,
Judge, and I sent him on.'
According to the government
everybody is just waiting
to be given a chance
to be like us."
--Wendell Berry
What nation is next in line for us to move on? The line is long, the line of those who need someone to give them the freedom that comes with an imposed democracy. Maybe Myanmar (Burma)? They held a legitimate democratic election and chose a president: Aung San Suu Kyi, but a military junta has kept her under house arrest for most of the past sixteen years. It is one of the most oppressive governments in the world. Just the sort for us to go in and set things straight.
I started to write that we are good at that sort of thing, but reality immediately invaded my mind. We are not very good at that sort of thing. But we do like to try.
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