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Monday, September 25, 2017

Was Ist Los? ~

80-90 seats in the German Bundestag will now be filled by the new extreme right AfD party that won yesterday in the elections.

Sunday, September 03, 2017

Cavalier's Delict ~

Here in Germany no one is really upset about VW and Audi cheating. No rage, no protests, no demonstrations. Cheating is all part of the game.

Saturday, August 19, 2017

Seasons Don't Wait ~

Sadly, I see the first tinge of autumn today on the maple trees along my path.

Monday, July 31, 2017

Boy Scouts of America ~

It was reported that the chief executive of the Boy Scouts had apologized for the President's speech held at a national gathering of Boy Scouts because of his rousing political statements. The White House spokeswoman deftly sidestepped saying: "I saw nothing but roughly 40,000 to 45,000 Boy Scouts cheering the president on throughout his remarks and I think they were pretty excited that he was there."

Saturday, July 01, 2017

Protectors ~

Two stately San Bernardino dogs out in front of a lady with their unneeded leashes would turn every thirty paces to see if she were coming along.

Thursday, June 22, 2017

Newfound Energy ~

Five new windmills on a hill in the distance rotating day and night, counterclockwise.

 

Monday, May 08, 2017

Remembering with Gratitude ~

Today is VE-Day. 

I look out my window and think what it would be like had Hitler not been stopped.

Tuesday, April 11, 2017

Thursday, April 06, 2017

Yevgeny Yevtushenko ~


† April 1, 2017

BABI YAR
by Yevgeny Yevtushenko

No monument stands over Babi Yar.
A steep cliff only, like the rudest headstone.
I am afraid.
Today, I am as old
As the entire Jewish race itself . . .

Friday, March 31, 2017

At 7:45 in the Morning ~

The highway is buzzing with cars heading off at high speed to make it to the place of work with all the people who are helping to hold this world together.

Tuesday, March 14, 2017

Saturday, February 18, 2017

Seeing in Darkness ~

To look up into the sky late at night and see the radiant stars . . . and then orient myself in the deep cosmos.

Monday, January 30, 2017

Beacon Light ~

Americans, the President said: "make no concealment of the fact that we want wealth, but there are many other things we want more. We want peace and honor, and that charity which is so strong as element of all civilization. The chief ideal of the American people is idealism. I cannot repeat too often that America is a nation of idealists. That is the only motive to which they ever give any strong and lasting reaction."

                                            President Calvin Coolidge 1923-29

Wednesday, January 11, 2017

Farewell Address ~


He made me feel proud to be an American and taught me, more than any other, what it meant.

Sunday, December 18, 2016

Progressing ~

Went back to my old seminary where four teenage years of intense living took place. There I found only a bare hill with grass going on it. The building has been torn down, deemed useless.

Tuesday, November 22, 2016

New Experience ~

It was a happy dream . . . I was standing in front of a grade-school class and a boy didn't know the German word for "page". "Oh, that was the very first word we leaned in Chapter One of our German book last year," I said. And all those little girls and boys lit up and smiled with such glowing faces, the likes of which I had never seen before.

Sunday, November 13, 2016

God's Will Works ~

It is in silence, the old monk said, like when the sun rises, or in the silent chamber of the heart that God's will works.

Tuesday, November 01, 2016

Crucial Decisions ~

All the really important decisions in life-- I had no real knowledge what it was all about: Priesthood, Marriage, Children. All a blind leap.

Saturday, October 22, 2016

Grief in Our Town ~

Not enough room in the church for all his friends, many stood outside. Lukas was 18 years old, had just acquired his driver's licence. He was driving to the train station to pick up a friend when he lost control . . .

Monday, October 10, 2016

Autumn Yearning ~

I see little birds flying south in clusters. It is raining and cold. How will they ever make it over the Alps?

Saturday, September 24, 2016

Classroom ~

I taught her in the fifth grade. She wrote saying I made a great impression on her for the rest of her life, for I had told her once to brush her teeth every day. She had done that and has a set of teeth to this day that everyone admires.

Tuesday, September 13, 2016

Goings-on ~

I heard someone comparing the catastrophic political atmosphere with John of the Cross's Dark Night of the Soul. He saw it positively, as laying the ground for a spiritual recovery, once everything has been reduced to nothing . . .

Friday, September 02, 2016

De Diligendo Deo ~

God is Great— What do you do if your notion of God and Jesus conflict? The former seems for the most part confined by the latter.

 

Monday, August 29, 2016

Coming into Focus ~

With 80-plus finally coming to understand what a momentous, catastrophic event the First World War was.

Thursday, August 11, 2016

Memory Fading ~

. . . Now I know why mother was irritated every time I wanted to play our do-you-remember game . . .

Monday, August 01, 2016

You are what you will ~

. . . I discover that it was my desires that regulated my advancement/lack of advancement in life. I never got beyond what I desired.

Sunday, July 24, 2016

With 80 Plus ~

The liberating awareness that there is really nothing we have to believe in . . . once we have learned to trust.

Wednesday, July 13, 2016

Mother ~

Came across this obituary in the newspaper this morning:


"For the world she was a nobody, for me she was the world. I had to let my mother go. My love and gratitude for her will only die when I die."

Monday, July 04, 2016

Disappointment ~

Drove 250 miles to Schwaebisch Hall just to see this painting. But, just five days before, it had been sent to Berlin on loan.

Saturday, May 28, 2016

Bounty ~





The lilacs are so profuse this year that, 
when I open my window near the bush, 
their sweet scent comes flooding in.

Saturday, May 21, 2016

With 80 Plus ~


On seeing people over 60 I feel a strong sympathetic tie with them, a felt respect, just because they have made it so far through life. They too, have been "through the mill" . . . 

Saturday, April 30, 2016

Flying Time ~

The fastest hour of the day is the one I spend at the piano after breakfast.

Tuesday, April 19, 2016

Encouragement ~

Last night In a dream I was trying to convince a down-and-out parish priest how good his work had been and how I admired him for his steady, sincere apostleship. I called him a Man of God, but he wouldn't hear it.

 

Wednesday, April 13, 2016

With 80 plus ~

With 80 plus it isn't so much the surfaces of things that interests you, but rather what under-girds them.


Thursday, April 07, 2016