overheard

i think i'm growing prematurely sentimental. recently i have awoken from a dream only to find myself sitting in a wicker backed roller chair in my grandparents living room, the vestry at bishop kelley or, more disturbingly, on the quad at the citadel during hell night. anyway, these unexpected travels made the following passage from uncle freddy all the more potent.

"the words time and tide trace their ancestry back to a common indo-european root, and part of what they still have in common after going their separate ways all these years is the sense of ebbing and flowing. time, like the receding waters of the ocean, bears all of us who are time's children farther and farther away from the near shore and closer and closer to the mysterious depths where we will finally come to our time's end...but the tide that carries us farther and farther away from our beginning in time is also the tide that turns and carries us back again. in other words, it is true what they say: the older we grow, the more we find ourselves returning to the days when we were young. more vividly than ever before, i think, we find ourselves remembering the particular house that was our childhood home. we remember the books we read there. we remember the people we love there." ~a longing for home, pgs. 1-2.

john irving wrote the the prayer for owen meany in the late eighties. yet this passage, which wryly comments on the gary hart scandal that took place during the 1988 democratic primaries, could have been written about many politicians before and since. read this passage and tell me that you couldn't hear dr. james saying something like this.

"what do americans know about morality? they don't want their presidents to have penises but they don't mind if their presidents covertly arrange to support the nicaraguan rebel forces after congress restricted such aid; they don't want their presidents to deceive their wives but they don't mind if their presidents deceive congress--lie to the people and violate the people's constitution! what mr. hart should have said was that nothing unusually immoral had occurred, or that what happened was only typically immoral; or that he was testing his abilities to deceive the american people by deceiving his wife first--and that he hoped the people would see by his example that he was immoral enough to be good presidential material!" pg. 269.

i've also heard a few encouraging words from a lurker known as becky. she's probably been reading your blog for a good while so be sure to stop by hers and say hello. i would also like to encourage the aforementioned lurker to join the conversation by commenting here and there.

finally, for all of you emergenty types, i stumbled across a blog that you might like. anthony smith is an african-american disciple who has blessed us by adding his voice to the conversation. you can find him at postmodernegro.blogspot.com.