Wednesday, June 23, 2010

Chesterton on Courage and Balance

I tend to see snippets of "great thinkers and philosophers" all over the 'net - and many times these snippets are so wholly out of their original context as to be warped in meaning (when not made of whole cloth altogether!). This section, excerpted from Chapter 6 of Chesterton's Orthodoxy has a few of those appropriated "bits". And yet as a whole it is so much more worthy of our attention!

"All sane men can see that sanity is some kind of equilibrium; that one may be mad and eat too much, or mad and eat too little. Some moderns have indeed appeared with vague versions of progress and evolution which seeks to destroy the MESON or balance of Aristotle. They seem to suggest that we are meant to starve progressively, or to go on eating larger and larger breakfasts every morning for ever. But the great truism of the MESON remains for all thinking men, and these people have not upset any balance except their own. But granted that we have all to keep a balance, the real interest comes in with the question of how that balance can be kept. That was the problem which Paganism tried to solve: that was the problem which I think Christianity solved and solved in a very strange way. 

Paganism declared that virtue was in a balance; Christianity declared it was in a conflict: the collision of two passions apparently opposite. Of course they were not really inconsistent; but they were such that it was hard to hold simultaneously. 

Let us follow for a moment the clue of the martyr and the suicide; and take the case of courage. No quality has ever so much addled the brains and tangled the definitions of merely rational sages. Courage is almost a contradiction in terms. It means a strong desire to live taking the form of a readiness to die. "He that will lose his life, the same shall save it," is not a piece of mysticism for saints and heroes. It is a piece of everyday advice for sailors or mountaineers. It might be printed in an Alpine guide or a drill book.

This paradox is the whole principle of courage; even of quite earthly or quite brutal courage. A man cut off by the sea may save his life if he will risk it on the precipice. He can only get away from death by continually stepping within an inch of it. A soldier surrounded by enemies, if he is to cut his way out, needs to combine a strong desire for living with a strange carelessness about dying. He must not merely cling to life, for then he will be a coward, and will not escape. He must not merely wait for death, for then he will be a suicide, and will not escape. He must seek his life in a spirit of furious indifference to it; he must desire life like water and yet drink death like wine. 

No philosopher, I fancy, has ever expressed this romantic riddle with adequate lucidity, and I certainly have not done so. But Christianity has done more: it has marked the limits of it in the awful graves of the suicide and the hero, showing the distance between him who dies for the sake of living and him who dies for the sake of dying. And it has held up ever since above the European lances the banner of the mystery of chivalry: the Christian courage, which is a disdain of death; not the Chinese courage, which is a disdain of life. 

And now I began to find that this duplex passion was the Christian key to ethics everywhere. Everywhere the creed made a moderation out of the still crash of two impetuous emotions."

Monday, June 14, 2010

Sometimes I feel like I'm just barely hanging on...

Today is one of those days...

I had to head into the office extra early after a busy weekend and a sad, emotional week with a friend passing, and another friend losing a beloved sibling. And then the wee ones arrived from SC for a long visit with us.

We had a family bbq/swim day at my brother's house, where his two little ones were delirious with joy at having their cousins back "at last!".

In and among the joyful play, some serious things were discussed.

Like when Aly (almost 9) plopped into my lap for a snuggle and announced, "I got to know my daddy for 12 whole days before he died - isn't that wonderful?!".

 Or when Sara announced that she had been viewing videos of 9/11 on youtube to check on if people had been lying to her - and if daddy really did burn up or if he was just crushed by the building.

So we had a chat about the stuff that makes you want to hide your head under the blankets and scream or cry. The stuff you don't want to have to discuss with children, but that you cannot brush aside when they trust you enough to share these thoughts and feelings.

Sunday, June 6, 2010

My Garden, by Emily Dickinson

New feet within my garden go,
New fingers stir the sod;
A troubadour upon the elm
Betrays the solitude.

New children play upon the green,
New weary sleep below;
And still the pensive spring returns,
And still the punctual snow!


Friday, June 4, 2010

2010 Scholarship Award Speech


Hello and congratulations to the Class of 2010.

My name is Kathy Bowden, and I graduated with the class of '82. My brother, Tommy Bowden, graduated a year later, in '83. 

Tommy was the friendliest guy I have ever known:  his buddies often remind me of how every time they saw him he was laughing or joking around, of how he had a smile for everyone.

Tommy was involved in various activities during his years here: a little baseball, a few years of track, a little bit of AV club. 

He loved Bruce Springsteen and U2, and adored staying with friends at the shore all summer long.

Tommy became a man I was always proud to call my brother - a man who knew how to live his life fully without sacrificing responsibility. A man who felt it his quiet duty to help out where needed. A man who surrounded himself with his friends and his family.

Tommy married the woman he loved, and had 2 beautiful daughters - Sara, now 10 ?, and Alyson, now almost 9.

Then one day Tommy went to work and our world changed. He was working for Cantor Fitzgerald, at the World Trade Center, on September 11, 2001.

While to most of you, 9/11 is a national and historical event, to my family - and to another family here today - it is deeply personal. We lost Tommy, and we lost dear friends. Tiny little Glen Ridge lost 7 people - and 4 of them (Tommy, John Candela, Mike La Forte and Brian Bennett) went to this school.

But I don't want to dwell on Tommy's death.

Tommy firmly believed that a key part of having a successful life was choosing happiness moment to moment.

So I choose to remember Members Only jackets and barn parties, White Castle ratburgers and hot summer nights driving down the shore, Springsteen concerts and Red Sox games.

And in honor of those memories, and in honor of the love and laughter Tommy brought to our lives, I would like present this year's scholarship award to Robert Rollo.

Tuesday, June 1, 2010

Daisy Time by Marjorie Pickthall

See, the grass is full of stars,
Fallen in their brightness;
Hearts they have of shining gold,
Rays of shining whiteness.


Buttercups have honeyed hearts,
Bees they love the clover,
But I love the daisies' dance
All the meadow over.
Blow, O blow, you happy winds,
Singing summer's praises,
Up the field and down the field
A-dancing with the daisies.