March 16th, 2020

In this perplexing, perilous present, these words from Brian Doyle seem appropriate:

"As a fan's notes for grace, a quavery chant against the dark, I sing a song of things that make us grin and bow, that just for an instant let us see sometimes the web and weave of merciful, the endless possible, the incomprehensible, inexhaustible yes.

  Such as, for example, to name a few:
   The way the sun crawls over the rim of the world every morning like a child's face rising from a pool all fresh from the womb of the dark, and the way jays hop and damsel-flies do that geometric aero-amazing thing and bees inspect and birds probe and swifts chatter . . ." [and rivers flow through a forest] "Look, I know very well that brooding misshapen evil is everywhere, in the brightest houses and the  most cheerful denials, in what we do and what we have failed to do, and I  know all too well that the story of the world is entropy, things fly apart, we sicken, we fail, we grow weary, we divorce, we are hammered and hounded by loss and accidents and tragedies.  But I also know, with all my hoary muddled heart, that we are carved of immense confusing holiness, that the whole point for us is grace under duress, and that you either take a flying leap at nonsensical illogical unreasonable ideas like marriage and marathons and democracy and divinity, or you huddle behind the wall.  I believe that the coolest things there are cannot be measured, calibrated, calculated, gauged, weighed, or understood except by sometimes having a child patiently explain it to you, which is another thing that should happen far more often to us all.  In short I believe in believing, which doesn't make sense. which gives me hope."