Yom Kippur – 16 September 2021

I have to say this on this day of atonement and forgiveness … I ask forgiveness for my country. I ask forgiveness for the blind ones who want to condemn a general who helped avoid a war with China … General Milley should be praised and not condemned … the world is upside down thanks to #45 who put himself on top of all things and crushed so many of those who did not agree or jump on board the Trump train. For the critics of General Milley, a Princeton graduate with a graduate degree from Columbia University and a distinguished military career … can any of the records of his attackers hold a faint candle to his record? The stone throwers trip over the pebbles of their lives while trying to diminish others. Okay … I have my own shortcomings to admit and seek forgiveness. I have not been such a great parent or spouse or sibling … too many things to mention specifically … I have helped some students but not helped others in need of help … I anger too easily, and I often say what I am thinking without considering better ways to express myself. I make jokes about serious issues to draw attention to things I regard as stupid or wrongheaded. Sometimes my jokes are offensive or in bad taste. Bite my tongue. I have lapses of memory and sometimes forget that I have lapses of memory. The point is that I am a skeptic at heart … a person in search of meaning and truth and admitting to knowing less than I sometimes pretend to know. Endless invention, endless experiment, Brings knowledge of motion, but not of stillness; Knowledge of speech, but not of silence; Knowledge of words, and ignorance of the Word. All our knowledge brings us nearer to our ignorance, All our ignorance brings us nearer to death …. All men are ready to invest their money But most expect dividends. I say to you: Make perfect your will . I say: take no thought of the harvest, But only of proper sowing … The desert is not remote in southern tropics, The desert is not only around the corner, The desert is squeezed in the tube-train next to you, The desert is in the heart of your brother. The good man is the builder, if he build what is good. (from T. S. Eliot’s “Choruses from the Rock”) I have no great words or thoughts of my own … I steal from others who have gone before. Most often from Bob Dylan: "It's never been my duty to remake the world at large, nor is it my intention to sound the battle charge." Before I go I can at least say that I have not killed another person … I have not caused physical harm to another person … I have loved and been loved … mostly by my children and grandchildren … and I have had amazing friends who live in various places across this threatened planet that we can temporarily call home.