This is what my friend and I talked about walking the dogs this morning, in the long shadows of the equinox sun and yellow leaves and snow on the mountains and north wind blowing down the river as the tide came in beginning with the Pope’s talk:
“I liked that he reminded congress of the Golden Rule, to do unto others as we would have them do unto us.” “Did he say Doris Day? Does he like music?How old is he?” “Oh, no. He said Dorothy Day, a liberal Catholic woman.” “I need to look her up.” “Me too.” “Well, what’s not to love about that?” “His Fiat is pretty great too. Did you see him tootling along in a motorcade of limos and giant SUVs?”
That chatter segued into what’s happening with the local harbor expansion. Perhaps the Fiat version that runs well would be better than the limo we will have to borrow a pile to buy the engine for. There are some ports and harbor committee meetings today, but if we go and say that we will just get yelled at anyway.
Then we talked about how to do the right thing, and have a positive influence on the future of Haines, and decided it is difficult right now. Haines is as polarized as Washington. But it may have always been. Ray Menaker died this week of old age. When he was on the Borough Assembly he had a bumper sticker on his car that said Question Authority.
Then we talked about why no one seems to be listening to each other, and what the secret may be to fixing that. Even in a public meeting, I think it helps to remember that everyone is suffering. (Monk Thomas Merton knew that. ) The people in charge and the people in the audience.
I mean, just yesterday playing golf with old friends, one said she had to take her mother grocery shopping– then corrected herself “I want to take my mother and am lucky I still can.” I said yes she was, my mother died ten years ago. I think about her everyday, and always when I’m golfing with some of her clubs. My friend’s son was killed in an accident. “It’s been twenty years,” she said, shaking her head and sighing. It doesn’t seem possible that my golfing partners, we were softball players then, set up the chairs for his funeral. But that’s part of our shared story now, and why our friendship, trust, and respect transcends political views– global and local.
This ramble really is all connected. I know it in my bones. As Dorothy Day so perfectly said ( I just looked her up…), “We have all known the long loneliness and we have learned that the only solution is love, and that love comes with community.”
(Speaking of which- there will be an organizational meeting for the Friends of the Haines Pool at 5 today in the newspaper office.)
