Lost

Couple of days ago I heard someone say that a resounding win for Kamala Harris could be the chance for the Republican Party to reclaim itself. To be able shake off the noxious parasite that is D.J. Cluck once his influence is diminished.

I’m all for that. Wouldn’t it be an absolute treat to have a solid and sensible GOP again? Purged of its blatant racist, misogynistic, and fascistic elements? Not that this would mean a worry-free and comfortable cruise into the future. The plug-uglies on both the right and the left never go away completely, but bide their time and wait for weak moments.

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Last evening Robin and I attended a local school board meeting where public comments were being heard on whether or not an application to start a new charter school should be approved. I’ve been to such meetings before, in other parts of the country, and they have been very similar in tone. A group of well-meaning parents would like to have a “safe” environment where their kids could attend school. Very often these are the same people who have been doing home schooling.

When I say “safe” I mean ideologically safe, without the modern world intruding with its confusions and uncertainties and those pesky gray areas. The proposed school here in Paradise would deliver a “classical” curriculum (a term to be defined by the organization promoting it).

The counter argument is familiar as well. Monies will be taken from the public schools, which are rarely abundant enough in the first place. So a small subset of students benefit but the larger group loses out, no matter how the cake is cut.

I read through the manifesto of the proposed new school and found it to be composed of coded words galore. If it isn’t a right wing academy in sheep’s clothing, I am a potato.

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This morning I read something delightful and something awful. Let’s take the delightful first. Author Mick Canning’s post about the book he never wrote – a footpath book. The way he describes it I know that I would have liked it. When I explore new territory on foot, I very much appreciate guidebooks that do more than just say: … turn here and then turn there … , but that instruct and illuminate.

It’s a tossup at the trailhead about how to approach each new path. Do I just step out without preconceptions and build my own story or do I read another’s account of that same journey and add to what they have noticed or learned? There are territories where if I go my own way something is introduced that is not appealing – the possibility of getting lost. Being truly lost can change your day in ways you never imagined.

Yesterday I came across a story of a 90 year-old hiker who had been on a ramble and became lost … for ten days. He was a tough old bird and is happily alive to talk about it. It could have been a tragic tale, but instead became a warm-hearted one.

But there was something missing from the newspaper account and that was what he learned from being out there not knowing where he was or whether he would make it out. All those hours of all those days un-moored completely from the ordinary cares of the rest of the world and focussed on only one thing, surviving.

That is experience that is hard to come by. Invaluable.

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St. Joseph’s is only one of more than 500 such schools across North America that were similarly run by the Roman Catholic Church. Brutality and violence are patterns that mark the entire history of that institution, and as we have learned to our sorrow it is not just distant history. I wonder what God thinks about the Church representing Him here on Earth?

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What a great thunderstorm throughout last night. One epic booming after another. Funny how it never becomes boring or tiresome, with each blast like a new recording of the same song with different people playing. I think Jimi Hendrix and Jimmy Page were trading riffs last night, with Neil Peart and Keith Moon on drums.

At any rate the concert was deafening and awe-inspiring. That’s one thing about a thunderstorm in mountain country. The instantaneous reflecting back and forth of sounds from those rock piles gives a special lift to what surrounds the listener. We are grateful for the rain that fell during all of this although it was rather piddly in volume (now … that doesn’t sound grateful at all, does it?)

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