I received a video from a friend of mine- You can see it here.
This man plays taps every evening. He started doing it as an expression of his values. Now his whole neighborhood stops and listens, comes out to stand at a civilian version of attention. This is for me a nice example of the impact of quietly (well, it is a trumpet) standing up for your values, and how it can affect many others. There is a poem that affects me the same way, that I read when I was 13 years old. It is called 'Mutterings Over the Crib of a Deaf Child', by James Wright. The text-
"How will he hear the bell at school
Arrange the broken afternoon,
And know to run across the cool
Grasses where the starlings cry,
Or undertand the day is gone?"
Well, someone lifting cautious brows
Will take the measure of the clock.
And he will see the birchen boughs
Outside the sagging dark from the sky,
And the shade crawling upon the rock.
"And how will he know to rise at morning?
His mother has other sons to waken,
She has the stove she must build to burning
Before the coals of the night-time die,
And he never stirs when he is shaken."
I take it the air affects the skin,
And you remember, when you were young,
Sometimes you could feel the dawn begin,
And the fire would call you by and by,
Out of the bed and bring you along.
"Well, good enough. To server his needs
All kinds of arrangements can be made.
But what will you do if his finger bleeds?
Or a Bobwhite whistles invisibly
And flutes like an angel off in the shade?"
He will learn pain. And, as for the bird,
It is always darkening when that comes out.
I will putter as though I had not heard,
And lift him into my arms and sing
Whether he hears my song or not.
I dearly love this poem, and I have copied it here without permission, although if the author is alive I hope he will be lenient, knowing I have put it here out of love and for a point, not to exploit.
The rhyme scheme, so beautifully and subtly worked out, breaks down when he makes the final point, which in gross language is that it makes no difference. He will love the child, and sing his songs of love and happiness and gentling even if the child IS deaf.
Society is deaf to reason and financial stability right now. We are pursuing policies that are a mistake in the name of fairness and kindness, forgetting that in the end what is fair is what you earn, and kindness sometimes means telling hard and painful truths. And I do think the Republicans have a great deal of thinking to do about their very backwards social policies.
But I don't think they have a thing to be sorry for about preaching fiscal discipline and the problems of taxation and spending. Right now they are singing their songs to a deaf society, a society deafened by the sounds of palatable lies and easy simplicities promising them a better life at the expense of others. But I think that, like the trumpeter, people will come to see the reality of the message, and eventually will stand still enough to listen, and then to be moved by its simplicity and also its power, which is the power of reality and truth.
Ted
This man plays taps every evening. He started doing it as an expression of his values. Now his whole neighborhood stops and listens, comes out to stand at a civilian version of attention. This is for me a nice example of the impact of quietly (well, it is a trumpet) standing up for your values, and how it can affect many others. There is a poem that affects me the same way, that I read when I was 13 years old. It is called 'Mutterings Over the Crib of a Deaf Child', by James Wright. The text-
"How will he hear the bell at school
Arrange the broken afternoon,
And know to run across the cool
Grasses where the starlings cry,
Or undertand the day is gone?"
Well, someone lifting cautious brows
Will take the measure of the clock.
And he will see the birchen boughs
Outside the sagging dark from the sky,
And the shade crawling upon the rock.
"And how will he know to rise at morning?
His mother has other sons to waken,
She has the stove she must build to burning
Before the coals of the night-time die,
And he never stirs when he is shaken."
I take it the air affects the skin,
And you remember, when you were young,
Sometimes you could feel the dawn begin,
And the fire would call you by and by,
Out of the bed and bring you along.
"Well, good enough. To server his needs
All kinds of arrangements can be made.
But what will you do if his finger bleeds?
Or a Bobwhite whistles invisibly
And flutes like an angel off in the shade?"
He will learn pain. And, as for the bird,
It is always darkening when that comes out.
I will putter as though I had not heard,
And lift him into my arms and sing
Whether he hears my song or not.
I dearly love this poem, and I have copied it here without permission, although if the author is alive I hope he will be lenient, knowing I have put it here out of love and for a point, not to exploit.
The rhyme scheme, so beautifully and subtly worked out, breaks down when he makes the final point, which in gross language is that it makes no difference. He will love the child, and sing his songs of love and happiness and gentling even if the child IS deaf.
Society is deaf to reason and financial stability right now. We are pursuing policies that are a mistake in the name of fairness and kindness, forgetting that in the end what is fair is what you earn, and kindness sometimes means telling hard and painful truths. And I do think the Republicans have a great deal of thinking to do about their very backwards social policies.
But I don't think they have a thing to be sorry for about preaching fiscal discipline and the problems of taxation and spending. Right now they are singing their songs to a deaf society, a society deafened by the sounds of palatable lies and easy simplicities promising them a better life at the expense of others. But I think that, like the trumpeter, people will come to see the reality of the message, and eventually will stand still enough to listen, and then to be moved by its simplicity and also its power, which is the power of reality and truth.
Ted
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