It struck me that the Second Coming of Cluck is the perfect time to break out one of the wisest prayers I know, the Serenity Prayer. Written by Reinhold Niebuhr around 1934, its relevance is timeless, and I am choosing it as my mantra for the upcoming quadrennial.
God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change,
Courage to change the things I can,
And wisdom to know the difference.
It’s that last line that’s the kicker, isn’t it? Until you get to it the question is “Sure, but how do I know what can and cannot be changed?”
Wisdom is the answer.
Some semblance of wisdom is at once essential to living a life worth mentioning, and a quality that is in ruefully short supply at the same time. I wish that I could say that I am a wise person, but the best I can do is to claim that, upon reflection, there have been a few widely separated times where I have behaved in a manner that might charitably be called wise. (Full disclaimer: Even those moments may have only been expressions of the stopped-clock principle (“even a stopped clock is right twice a day.”)
What I am not going to do is rent Mr. Cluck any space in my head. In our present climate where every one of his belches, hiccups, and exhalations are reported breathlessly by media outlets, this is not going to be a simple thing to do. His administration may well cause extensive disruptions in our national life, but what I believe and who I am and who and what are dear to me will not change. These things are far too valuable to be ever handed over to politicians. Any politicians.
(Or to anyone else, for that matter).
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The time is always right to do what is right.
Martin Luther King, Jr.
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When we moved to Paradise, there were Apple product sales and repair facilities in both Montrose and Grand Junction. Both have blown away like milkweed seeds in September and there are no indications that they will ever return.
My present problem is an iPhone battery that is malfunctioning. There is a local guy working out of the back of a packaging store who does such replacements, but I already used him once and the battery he installed was a POS and which is the one now failing. Lasted less than a year.
Just today I got a callback from a Mac repairman in yet another nearby town who informed me that he doesn’t do phones but can recommend someone reliable who does. I don’t want to get my hopes up but … you know … desperate times, desperate measures.
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I don’t usually think of David Brooks as a humorist, but he gets off a couple of good lines in his latest piece published in the Times of New York. Even the title makes me smile and cringe at the same time: We Deserve Pete Hegseth. Gallows humor.
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We may have all come on different ships, but we’re in the same boat now.
Martin Luther King, Jr.
I have now read 127 thinkpieces on the subject of why the Democrats lost the last election. They have provided me with 127 different points of view. I will give each of the authors credit for hubris, and it is possible that some of them are at least partially correct. But really … aren’t they the latest example of the classic story of blind men describing an elephant?
The parable of the blind men and an elephant is a story of a group of blind men who have never come across an elephant before and who learn and imagine what the elephant is like by touching it. Each blind man feels a different part of the animal’s body, but only one part, such as the side or the tusk. They then describe the animal based on their limited experience and their descriptions of the elephant are different from each other. In some versions, they come to suspect that the other person is dishonest and they come to blows. The moral of the parable is that humans have a tendency to claim absolute truth based on their limited, subjective experience as they ignore other people’s limited, subjective experiences which may be equally true.
Let me add a 128th viewpoint. In this past election one candidate was a man whose sterling qualities included being a pathological liar, a rampant narcissist, a psychopath, an abuser of women, a serial oath-breaker, a con man of the most blatant stripe, a draft dodger, and a convicted felon.
If a political party manages to lose an election to such opposition there exists the possibility that said party has its collective head up its collective bum.
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Something unusual and beautiful happened in Paradise on January 20. There was an all-day celebration of the life of Martin Luther King Jr. Starting with speeches and a march in the frigid air of our coldest day this winter so far (Disclaimer – I did not march. My physician, Dr. Outlastia Permanentia, has told me that my fragile constitution will not allow for outdoor activities when shivering is even a remote possibility. She fears that such rapid movements will cause my body to fly apart).
There was live music where the audience shared voices both tuned and tuneless in singing songs of the civil rights era. There was a movie about John Lewis, another major figure in the fight for civil/human rights and justice. There were readings of quotations of MLK both in English and Spanish.
All in all it was very moving and an unexpected midwinter treat. When we are barraged every day with examples of mendacity, selfishness, and dimwittedness, it is good to be reminded that this is not all we humans are. Sometimes we are capable of generosity, selflessness, and even magnificence. Those qualities were celebrated today in several venues around town. With music, speeches, films, and audience participation.
We were also reminded that the battle against injustice is not a thing that is over and done. We are daily given opportunities to continue that struggle.
Also … there were cookies at nearly all of the venues. I am not so pure that I can’t be bribed by an oatmeal/raisin delicacy.
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History will have to record that the greatest tragedy of this period of social transition was not the strident clamor of the bad people, but the appalling silence of the good people.
Martin Luther King, Jr.
Little Home In The Valley 
I admire your determination not to give the felon any time in your head, but I fear the next four years may try your patience to the limit.
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Not so much patience, I think, as saving energy for the times when opposition is required of me. He provides daily provocations which can burn you out if you respond to every one.
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