Mercy, Clothed in Light

Today is a difficult day, on a variety of levels, even for us, far away. We have sort of cringed from excess sympathy, as our voices immediately mark us as American, and with the news blaring September 11, 9/11, the tragic events of, almost round the clock, we don’t want to attract excess interest. As it is, we’ve only just discovered that we’re singing The Battle Hymn of the Republic at a concert next weekend, in part to mark the occasion (not our director’s choice) of ten years after many died, and for the deaths of the many, so many more were arranged.

In spite of its wrongheadedness, it is not hard to love one’s country. After travel, it is harder to love one’s country to the exclusion of others. Earthquakes, hurricanes, tsunamis, floods; we have all suffered. Regime change, war, brutality, starvation; so, so many have died in the last ten years. In this world we have so much pain. Are we today all Americans? Can we be, tomorrow, all Iranian, or Egyptian, or Afghan, or Norwegian, or Libyan, or Nigerian, or Japanese? Today, we will meditate on perspective, and balance. In the name of perspective, then:

Notes from the Other Side

~ Jane Kenyon

I divested myself of despair

and fear when I came here.

Now there is no more catching

one’s own eye in the mirror,

there are no bad books, no plastic,

no insurance premiums, and of course

no illness. Contrition

does not exist, nor gnashing

of teeth. No one howls as the first

clod of earth hits the casket.

The poor we no longer have with us.

Our calm hearts strike only the hour,

and God, as promised, proves

to be mercy clothed in light.

Pax