Stephanie Boehler, a former student of mine when I taught at St. Blasien College in Germany, is seen here with her German teammates after winning Olympic Silver in the Women's Cross Country Event.
I'm rejoicing with you, Stephanie, and proud to have had you as a student.
One of the plagues of age is this: you become aware of your own flaws and insufficiences. Those old weaknesses that you had all along but didn't clearly see. Now they all show themselves clearly. One feels shame. It takes a good portion of courage to master this troubling recognition. I learn humility late in life.
We were High School students back in the late '40s and were reading Cicero's On Old Age. Back then I didn't know what to make of his statement that it was young men who had sent the most powerful governments crashing to ruin, but it was the old men who had either kept them strong or restored their strength.
Our fierce cold winter has broken, the deep snow has started to melt and already a reddish shimmer has shown itself on the birch trees in the grove.
It is 38 minutes past midnight and I hear the planes flying overhead on their first bombing run to Dresden. How can I close my eyes in sleep recalling what human suffering we caused there?
State of the Union: $439,000,000,000 allocated for defence in 2007. When will we have a President who spends half of that on making peace in the world?
The joys of retirement: This morning after breakfast had time to watch a furtive nuthatch land heavily on the feeder and make off triumphantly with a single sunflower seed.
Stephanie Boehler, a former student of mine when I taught at St. Blasien College in Germany, is seen here with her German teammates after winning Olympic Silver in the Women's Cross Country Event. 
