Pascal in New Zealand

And now, for something completely different ....

Those of you who know Pascal -- and yes, I know you folks do read my blog, even if you won't leave me any comments! -- anyway, you probably know that he's spending half of his junior year at the University of Melbourne. A bunch of his fellow dormies are from New Zealand, and he's just finished touring that country with them during his term break.

Whenever he found a cyber cafe, he sent Dean and Francine vivid emails describing his experiences. He copied me in on some of them ... just because he knew that I'd gnash my teeth with envy as I read each one! And I did!

I thought I'd give you a few excerpts -- dashed off quickly, but highly descriptive, and quite expressive of his excitement -- and also three of his photos.


It was amazing! We had about an hour hike to get up there... and get this, it was in a RAINFOREST! yes... that's right... you hike through a rainforest to get to a glacier! Crazy! So you go from being really warm to freeeezing! Once we got on the glacier we threw on some crampons and got hiking. It was quite the experience. Quite slow because our guide had to constantly carve steps out for us with her pick axe. It was really incredible to be on there though. Took way too many pictures! Anyways... that was amazing fun. And afterwards we hopped into our car (now named Misty due to her light complexion) and took off for what turned out to be quite the drive.

While we were en route we decided... why not just drive for most of the night and get as close to Milford Sound as possible? So we did. After a brief dinner in a one-cafe-restaurant-town in the middle of no where we drove... and drove... and drove. It was really nice actually. Two people would sleep in the back seat and two would drive and navigate. We almost hit about 5-6 animals along the way... but I don't think we actually DID hit any. Lots of possums and rabbits. So we ended up driving till about 1:45 AM and pulled off into a little roadside campground where we tied up our tent (because when we borrowed it the person forgot to give us the poles) and got to sleep. Two slept in the tent and two in the car. Hahaha... the tent actually worked just fine and we were up and goin in the morning. It only took us another 45 minutes to get to Milford Sound which was an absolutely breath-taking drive! The fjordlands were INCREDIBLE! Maaaaassive mountains all around and crazy waterfalls all over! Aw man... could not stop Ooooing and Ahhhhing. Milford sound is a TINY little town that doesn't even have a grocery store! We walked around town when we got there and then ended up just hanging out at our hostel after a failed attempt at a hike... because it was pouring rain...

Ok... so my time is out on the internet... more soon!

And five days later.....

My plan was to stay in Dunedin until Monday and then bus back, because the other guys had a flight back to Melbourne on Sunday morning... but once again, no availabilities... so I booked a place in Christchurch and just drove back with the boys. It was a nice drive back... stopped to play frisbee along the highway while watching the sun set which was absolutely amazing! The boys dropped me off at my hostel in Christchurch before spending the night at the airport and leaving very early the next morning back to Melbourne. My hostel is nice. It's really nice to just be able to relax and not be on the go all the time. Yesterday I slept in and then walked over to a Sunday market outside. I had a great crepe there (nutella of course) and then decided to check out the botanical gardens. Wow! It was sooo nice! It has a big creek running through it and people rent out kayaks and canoes and there are even those gondola things like in Venice! So I just grabbed a bench by the creek, whipped out my new Nick Hornby book called A Long Way Down (which is very good so far), listened to some tunes and had a GREAT time. It was just perfect! I can't describe to you how happy I was at that moment with the smiling kayakers and the beautiful scenery. Hahaha... it was hilarious, a whole gondola full of Japanese tourists floated by and one of the old ladies waved at me... so naturally I waved back, and one of the other old ladies thought that I was waving at her so she waved and I waved back and then another waved... eventually I got a wave from the entire gondola! Hahahhaha... ah such good times.

He's crazy of course, but we should all be so lucky to be so crazy!! Pascal, you idiot, if you read this blog, send me more mail!!

Judicial Murder

"Lethal Injection Procedures," as officially established by the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation:

In advance of the execution, syringes containing the following are prepared:

5.0 grams of sodium pentothal in 20-25 cc of diluent

50 cc of pancuronium bromide

50 cc of potassium chloride

Each chemical is lethal in the amounts administered.

At the warden’s signal, sodium pentothal is administered, then the line is flushed with sterile normal saline solution. This is followed by pancuronium bromide, a saline flush, and finally, potassium chloride. As required by the California Penal Code, a physician is present to declare when death occurs.

In 129 nations, the death penalty has either been officially abolished, or not used for at least ten years.

Twenty-five countries still use the death penalty. The only European nation to still execute its prisoners is Belarus.

The nations making the Top Ten for number of judicial killings in 2006 are as follows:

China
Iran
Pakistan
Iraq
Sudan
United States of America
Saudi Arabia
Yemen
Vietnam
Kuwait

We're in fine company.

No further comment.

Where No Man Has Gone Before

Fellow blogmeister Zach and I expressed our longing in these pages recently for a larger, less well-mapped world to explore (see comments to The Fading Light of Shangri La). Well, I'll be darned if astronomers haven't obligingly come up with the discovery of Gliese 581 C.

Gliese 581 C, for those of you who have spent the past week in a scientific vacuum, is being trumpeted as the most Earth-esque planet, the most humanly-desirable extraterrestial real estate, ever discovered in the Universe. It is one of three planets now known to revolve around the red dwarf star, Gliese 581. Note that none of these planets has ever been seen by the eye of man. Or woman. They've been inferred to exist only from minute wobbles noted in the movements of the star they circle.

And yet. And yet, our cunning astronomers can tell us a lot about this new (new to us, at least) planet.

What excites them most is that the planet's mass suggests that it must be either solid or liquid, or a combination of the two -- not gaseous like such giants as Jupiter and Saturn. They have calculated, moreover -- all from slight perturbations in the red dwarf star's motions, mind you -- that the mean surface temperature must fall between 32 degrees and 104 degrees F. (Which makes it more livable than, say, Chicago.) At those temperatures, any lake you might fall into would be filled with H2O, not some ghastly liquid like methane. A very nice feature, indeed, if you happen to be a carbon-based human, as so many of us are.

In the maddeningly imprecise language that newspapers use when discussing science, MSNBC announces that the newly discovered planet is "50 percent bigger than earth." Does that mean 50 percent larger diameter, or 50 percent more surface area? Probably the former, which means that the surface area would actually be 2 1/4 times that of the earth. (The math is left as an exercise for the reader.)

Which makes it a nice big world to live on and hike around. Lots of blank spaces on Gliesian maps still to be explored and to lose oneself in.

One slight drawback for some might be that gravity at the surface would be about 50 percent greater than on earth. If you are a trim, athletic 150 lb. here on Earth, in other words, you would find yourself waddling around as a somewhat portly 225 pounder on Gliese 581 C's more spacious surface.

Another peculiarity is that the red dwarf star is so cool (literally, I mean) that its planet's surface remains comfy even though its orbit is very close to its "sun." So close, in fact, that Gliese 581 C zips around its short orbit every 13 days. Not only might that get old awfully fast -- so would you! While your friends back on Earth aged a year, you would have experienced 28 Gliesian years!

Look at the bright side: if their winters are like Seattle winters, they would seem more tolerable if each lasted only 3 or 4 days.

So, I say, all in all, it sounds great. Good climate, water to swim in and drink, quickly changing seasons -- and lots more land to explore. All that's worth putting on a few more pounds.

So how soon do we get there? Hmm. Well, Gliese 581 C does seem to be about 20 light years away, as the crow flies.

"Warp speed, Mr. Sulu!"

After the Neocons, What?

Illustration (c) The Economist 2007

American idealism remains as essential as ever, perhaps even more so. But in the new world order, its role will be to provide the faith to sustain America through all the ambiguities of choice in an imperfect world. Traditional American idealism must combine with a thoughtful assessment of contempory realities to bring about a usable definition of American interests. Henceforth, ... the fulfillment of America's ideals will have to be sought in the patient accumulation of partial successes.

--Henry Kissinger, Diplomacy (1994)

In this week's Economist magazine, the columnist "Lexington" points out the amazingly swift decline in influence of the Republican "neoconservative" movement over the past three years. Rumsfeld "resigned"; Wolfowitz disgraced by nepotism; Libby convicted; Conrad Black on trial for fraud; Dick Cheney himself so unpopular that even BYU students have protested against his appearance on campus. Neoconservatism began, Lexington observes, as a "critique of the arrogance of power." It ironically ends in confusion and disgrace, resulting from its adherents' own arrogance.

The British magazine suggests that American foreign policy is now returning to the "realism" that British diplomacy has always embraced. "Britain does not have friends, only interests," remarked the nineteenth century prime minister, Lord Palmerston. Lexington feels that Condolezza Rice herself "is returning to her 'realist' roots at the State Department, now that Mr. Rumsfeld is out of her hair."

Well, I'm not so confident that Condi's embrace of neoconservatism was merely a tactical tool that permitted her to survive in a neoconservative administration. However, I'm willing, for a short period, to give her the benefit of the doubt. (I may just have a weakness for attractive Stanford grads who play Brahms when they aren't plotting invasions.) We shall see.

In any event, a full Palmerstonian "realism" is not the only alternative to our current foreign policy of imposing "democracy" on other cultures by devastating them. Henry Kissinger, who never ranked high in my pantheon of heroes -- but certainly was no idiot, either -- pointed the way to a more "nuanced" (the word that drives George Bush crazy) foreign policy in his history of American diplomacy. If "realism" is conceived as a foreign policy whose only objective is maintaining American security in a hostile world -- or more broadly, as also protecting American business interests abroad -- we have not pursued a purely realistic foreign policy for many decades, if ever.

American diplomacy has always been concerned with pursuing both friends and interests.

Most Americans care about the welfare of people throughout the world. They've proved their concern within the past two or three years by their outpouring of contributions to aid victims of the tsunami in India, Sri Lanka, Thailand, and Indonesia, and of the earthquake in Kashmir. They care about people living in areas that have no oil, no wealth, no conceivable strategic value to American geopolitics -- places like Darfur in Africa. When Americans seem not to care, it is more apt to be because they do not know of human suffering, not because they don't care about it.

The first duty of foreign policy, of course, is always to protect against direct threats to the security of the United States. But this country is the undisputed superpower of the world. Threats to national security are not the major concern that they were during the Cold War. (Terrorist threats pose what is largely a police problem, I would argue, not a foreign policy problem.) Our country is therefore free to pursue idealistic goals as well -- promoting freedom from poverty and starvation, minimizing threats of warfare, encouraging development of democratic forms of government that are consistent with each country's culture and values.

As Kissinger suggested, such a foreign policy can't be based on military threats, let alone military invasions. It can't be based on hostile embargoes and isolation, such as we have futilely imposed on Cuba for nearly a half century. Instead, it should be based on careful delivery of foreign aid, on help with education, on encouragement of other countries in developing their own skills and resources. It should be based on enthusiastically inviting foreign study in the United States, and the study overseas of American students -- not on crippling such international student exchanges by impossible visa requirements and quotas. It should be based on a sincere effort -- by government and citizens -- to appreciate the values of other cultures, a willingness to work with other cultures within those values, while maintaining faith in our own values, and the humility to recognize that other nations have histories far longer than our own. The temporary fact that their people do not all own iPods does not mean that their national (or tribal) experiences have been worthless, or have taught them nothing.

And as Kissinger concludes, patience is a virtue. A series of gradual successes should be our goal, not the overnight kind of "success" that we sometimes seem to think we must achieve by invading a nation, or assassinating its leaders. Societies evolve, they rarely change radically within a decade. Like every other country, we have the right to encourage such evolution. We have no right to impose it, and we have little hope of long-term success when we try.

The neocons waited for decades for their moment. They seized the opportunity that the Bush adminstration provided, botched it, demonstrated the fallacies of their ideas, and are now getting the boot. Let's pray for a more carefully reasoned foreign policy, more consistent with American ideals and less impatient in its demands for instant success, in the years to come.

Congratulations, Jesse!

Jesse heads for Davis next fall, with a double major in biology and history.

Way to go, J-Man!

The Fading Light of Shangri La

Last year, 16-year-old Elisa Santry died in the canyonlands of Utah, while on a hike with Outward Bound. The day's hike was to be only seven miles, on a well marked jeep track, but Elisa somehow became separated from the other five teenagers. She wandered up a side trail in 110 degree temperatures, carrying a 40 pound backpack. She died of heat exhaustion before she could be found.

She died, dehydrated, just a half mile from the Colorado River, where the hike was to have ended

Elisa was a gifted student from Boston. She was hiking in the 16th day of a 22-day program. She had to beg her parents to permit her to join the program. In the sort of writing made famous by Jon Krakauer, Christopher Ketcham reconstructs her final hours in this month's National Geographic Adventure magazine.

Her parents have sued Outward Bound for negligent supervision.

Ketcham's article brings to mind a couple of disturbing, and related, trends. The first is the growing tendency of American parents to be overly protective, and overly litigious if that protection fails. It's hard to criticize this tendency in the tragic context of a daughter's death, but the same impulse can be seen in the way so many parents keep their kids busy, and "off the streets," in supervised activities during every waking hour, and in their active direction of their children's educations, even to the point of writing and submitting their college applications for them. A recent article interviewed a number of parents who had even sold their homes and moved to college towns, to join with their son or daughter "in the college experience."

This refusal to permit adolescents to make mistakes, and to take responsibility for the consequences of mistakes, strikes, as Ketcham points out, at the core objective of Outward Bound, which is to teach young people the self-confidence and the skills to handle themselves on their own, ultimately without supervision, under even the most extreme circumstances. As Ketcham observes in his article:

A 1991 study found that the radius around the home where parents allowed nine-year-olds to wander had shrunk to one-ninth of what it had been in 1970. Fear of risk -- and of litigation -- drives suburban homeowners to abide by "covenants" that prohibit basketball in streets, marbles-play on sidewalks, and fort-building in nearby woods. In California, Girl Scouts are often restricted from climbing trees at camp. The notion that accidents happen -- especially fatal ones -- is simply at odds with what most parents today are willing to accept.

Now cities have even removed swings, jungle gyms and teeter-totters from playgrounds, out of fear of risk -- risk both of injury to the kids, and of liability for themselves. Parents in other countries think we're insane.

The second disturbing trend, and the one that really occurred to me in reading Ketcham's article, although less explicitly stated, is the planet's increasing inability to provide opportunities for persons of any age to accept and embrace existential challenges. Less than a hundred years ago, in 1911-12, Robert Scott led an English expedition to the South Pole, a tragic venture that ended in the slow death of all of his party. He left behind the famous final entry in his journal:

Had we lived I should have had a tale to tell of the hardihood, endurance and courage of my companions which would have stirred the heart of every Englishman. These rough notes and our dead bodies must tell the tale...We shall stick it out to the end, but we are getting weaker of course and the end cannot be far. It seems a pity, but I do not think I can write more. For God's sake, look after our people.

He was hailed around the world as the finest example of British adventurer. Today, he would be considered a fool, and his family would sue somebody, anybody, for not saving his life or preventing him from leaving home. But more to the point, there simply are not many ways left by which a person can test himself against the unknown, where the penalty for failure may be death. We have too many cushions to fall back on -- GPS devices, helicopter rescues, satellite voice and email communications.

Expeditions to Mount Everest are supported by a battery of technological tools, and wealthy climbers pay exorbitant amounts to drag themselves up fixed lines that have been installed for their use and convenience by Sherpas. Deaths still occur, under the extreme conditions of elevation and weather, but they are deaths observed and discussed by the entire world -- virtually as they are occurring -- over the internet. No one these days dies on Everest, leaving behind only a journal to be discovered and read months or years later.

Most people, of course, have no interest in challenges like the one Scott faced. But even travelers with a taste for adventure, for discovering the unknown and for losing themselves in unexplored places and civilizations, have fewer opportunities than ever today. Maps a hundred years ago had many blank spaces on them, especially maps of Asia and South America. And the map of Africa was virtually a total blank, once you looked inland from the coastal regions. Even road maps of the American West showed dirt roads turning to tracks, and tracks trailing off into the desert. Not so long ago, a kid could stare at a California highway map and dream of exploring and discovering hidden civilizations, lost cities, secret canyons, bizarre fauna. Shangri La in the Mojave! As the early American ecologist, Aldo Leopold, remarked, prophetically:

I would hate to be young again without wild country to be young in, for what avails 40 freedoms without a blank space on the map?

Today, the young person looking for a blank space on the map to explore finds little hope of secret mysteries. His bookstore will sell him a Lonely Planet guidebook with detailed information for virtually every village and hamlet in every country in the world. "Adventure travel," as sold by travel companies, may sometimes be actually adventuresome -- as in Tracy Johnston's Shooting the Boh -- but is more likely to be a carefully scripted trip with every detail planned in advance.

More and more destinations begin taking on the atmosphere of Disneyland or Las Vegas. Why spend money to go to Istanbul, where everyone speaks Turkish, when you can see the same sights with good food and English speaking hosts at AsiaMinorLand, or at the MGM Istanbul Hotel, Nevada? Especially once Istanbul itself, the real Istanbul, begins cleaning itself up and learning English, with chic bars that serve Bud Lite?

The would-be adventurer can still be an observant traveler. He will still find much -- very much -- that to him is new and amazing and enlightening. Travel itself helps anyone know himself better, and this has always been one of the real reasons for traveling. But there are few spaces left on the planet where the traveler can be an "explorer," in the classical sense of making discoveries that widen man's knowledge of new peoples and places.

This planet has been explored to the hilt. As Paul Fussell writes, "We are all tourists now."

Ah.... But someday. When we can travel to Mars.....!!!!

The Painter

"L'enfer, c'est les autres."

--Jean Paul Sartre

All of a sudden, I have a new housemate. Let's call him "Mike," since that's his name. He spent all day today in my house. He greets me tonight amidst the ruins of my living room, after I drag myself home from work.

Mike is a painter. No, not that kind of painter. Not still lifes, nudes, expressionism. Mike's a house painter. And for the next month, it appears, he is to be my house painter. (I say "next month," but I shudder as I recall stories of contractors who began projects that were still unfinished a year or so later.)

Mike appears to be very skillful. He is enthusiastic. He offers lots of suggestions, and has an eye for shades and colors. Mike is also disruptive. He has covered all my meager possessions with tarps, leaving me little room to roost -- just my bed, and this chair at my computer. Stripped of bookcases and wall hangings, the rooms look bleak and ugly. Disruption is a necessary part of having your house painted. I know that. I knew that. I was expecting -- although dreading -- it.

But Mike is also a talker. Now, when I get home from work, I don't feel like talking. Or, more accurately, I don't feel like listening. Not at all. But Mike's got a lot to say. After one day's work, my house hides no secrets from Mike. And Mike needs to share his discoveries.

It seems that my house is very overdue for painting. Very overdue. It seems that the oil furnace has, at times past, blown out a fine, greasy layer of soot that still clings to walls and furnishings. It seems that portions of the wall and ceiling plaster are being held in place only by old paint. It seems that -- oh my god, how can I tell you this without blushing -- it seems there are even signs that I have at times shared portions of my house with, as it were, rodents!!

My house has not really been very well cared for, has it?

Mike doesn't come right out and say it, of course. I'm going to be paying his bill someday, after all, he hopes. But, in general, I suspect he feels -- sadly, because he is a professional -- that I haven't really proved very worthy of my house. I'm like a ten-year-old who longs to be out playing baseball, but has been given a fine Stradivarius violin on which he's been forced to practice.

In other words, I feel him thinking, it's really a damn shame.

Psychiatrists call it "projection" -- ascribing your own worst thoughts about yourself to others. Yeah, yeah. Whatever. "April is the cruelist month," according to T. S. Eliot, who actually had very little interest in house painting. This year, April shows every sign of being the longest month, as well.

One day endured, about 29 more to go.

Boy Wonder on Cello

Since last year, the principal cellist for the Seattle Symphony has been a 23-year-old with a white Afro and a goofy smile. For those not familiar with major (or even semi-major) symphony orchestras, take my word for it -- it is definitely not their custom to hire principal players younger than 25.

Even if he weren't the principal cellist, Joshua Roman would stand out from the rest of the orchestra. The largely middle aged (or older)(or much older) musicians customarily sit stiffly in their seats, nervously tuning their instruments, awaiting the conductor, and in general looking uncomfortably aware that they are sitting on a lighted stage in front of thousands of staring Seattle concert-goers. Mr. Roman, on the other hand, looks like a high school student goofing off before class, waiting for the teacher to arrive. He grins, he talks to the musicians on either side of him, he fidgets, he helps the cellist next to him arrange her music stand.

Throughout the performance I attended last night, he kept one eye on the playing of the concertmaster (first violinist), grinning occasionally at subtleties he was apparently picking up from that playing. After the performance, as the audience shuffled its way out of Benaroya Hall and most of the other players had escaped into the wings, Roman was still standing in the middle of the stage, propping his cello up with one hand, engaged in an excited post mortem with the concertmaster and the chorus director (the orchestra had played a choral number).

Despite his age, Roman was considered a major catch by the Seattle Symphony, and critics are already wondering how much longer he will remain with us before being picked up by a more prestigious orchestra. He adds a youthful excitement to each performance. (Not surprisingly, like some other young classical musicians, he sometimes works in other genres as well -- jazz, rock, bluegrass).

It would be nice to see the same enthusiasm and excitement conveyed by the older musicians. Most no doubt feel that excitement deep within. Visiting soloists certainly display it. "Excitement" isn't everything -- maturity and depth of experience are important. And no one wants to watch orchestra players intentionally call attention to themselves while playing as part of a group. But on their surface, the regular orchestra players too often look frozen-faced, like a bunch of taciturn corporate vice presidents playing musical instruments for a hobby, a hobby with which they seem somewhat uncomfortable.

If Mick Jagger can still display -- and create -- excitement at the age of 63, I would think classical musicians, many younger than Jagger -- even just a few of them would help -- could do the same. I look forward to attending a performance where Joshua Roman plays a significant solo part.

PS -- One of the wonders of the internet is that a webpage, once published, usually stays published and accessible. This is from a webpage, created a few years back by Joshua Roman, that I discovered while checking up on his musical training:

Hello! I am thirteen years old, in the ninth grade (I'm a homeschooler), and have been playing the 'cello since I was three.

When I started out, I studied with Lacy McLarry in Oklahoma City. But in 1996 I moved to Mississippi, so now I take lessons from Peter Spurbeck at the University of Memphis. I am also in the Memphis Youth Symphony.

My favorite 'cellists are Yo-Yo Ma, Janos Starker and Pablo Casals. My favorite composer is J.S. Bach, although my favorite song is Dvorak's concerto for cello and orchestra. My favorite web page is the Internet Cello Society page.

I also enjoy playing soccer, and going to Boy Scouts, where I am Life rank and Chaplain's Aid. I have two brothers and one sister, which makes for six in the house.(not including pets.) My Dad also plays cello, but everybody else plays the violin. I got a new 'cello, made by Mr. Staszel, in the workshop of William Harris Lee. It sounds great!

Birth of a Wallflower

[T]he Bush administration prefers talking to nobody unless it finds somebody who thinks more or less the way it does. And folks like that are fewer and fewer.

--Christopher Dickey (Newsweek)

Mr. Dickey sums up succinctly a major theme of present U.S. (i.e., Bush's) foreign policy. He compares present-day America to a stalled semi, blocking traffic in the middle of the freeway: You can't ignore it, "but if you can squeeze by, you do, and a lot of the time you’re honking your horn."

Read today's news. Speaker Pelosi visits Syria. Syria is a major power in the Middle East, centrally located, and critical to the peace process. But Syria is naughty, according to this administration. VP Cheney appears all red-faced, hopping up and down, screaming, and generally throwing a tantrum because Pelosi is talking to Syria.

Or take Iran. Sure, it's a country led by an erratic president, with real power held by conservative mullahs. But it's a huge country, non-Arab, with a society that's far more Western, middle-class, and historically sympathetic to our values than that of Iraq.

Everyone in this country (not just Bush) is totally confused at what's going on politically behind the scenes in Iran. We desperately need to understand Iranians better, and to make personal contacts across their entire political and religious spectrum. But no way! Iran is part of Bush's "Axis of Evil." Official -- even informal -- contacts are out of the question. So we beg the Saudis -- a nation that, one day, you just know, will cause us problems -- to find out for us what's going on and to let us know all the gossip.

"Betty, I'm not talking to Heather. She's a brat! So pleaaaase ... do me a big favor and find out if Heather's still friends with Trisha, and if she's REALLY gonna go out with Justin, ok?"

Mr. Dickey is overly generous in comparing the U.S. to a stalled trucker. We are more like the spoiled little girl who turns up her nose at other kids who aren't "good enough" for her. Soon, she's talking only to a couple of hangers-on, non-threatening kids who don't have other friends.

The poor little rich girl inevitably ends up in tears; no one ever bothers inviting her to their parties anymore.

We may be reaching the point where other nations throw their own party in the Middle East, serving barrels of petroleum for refreshments, and absent-mindedly "forget" to invite the U.S. and its pathetic little shadow, the U.K.

Easter 2007

Christ is risen!

He is indeed risen!

--Greek Orthodox Easter greeting and response

Happy Easter to anyone chancing upon this blog. Happy Easter whether you are Christian, Jew, Muslim, Buddhist, Hindu, Confucian, Animist, Agnostic, or Atheist.

"Happy Easter" to you all, just because you and I, and all of us everywhere, share a common humanity. And as fellow humans, not all may believe that God entered into his own creation as a human being 2000 years ago, but we do all share a common faith. An unconscious faith, perhaps, and maybe a faith that some of us try to deny with our "rational" minds. But it is a faith that gets us out of bed every morning and takes us through each day, a faith that makes life's greatest joys possible and its deepest sorrows meaningful.

I speak of the faith that each of our human lives has infinite meaning, a meaning far beyond that of an ant struggling for survival in an anthill.

Our faith cannot be argued or proved. From a purely logical perspective, we can theorize that we might be totally mechanical robots just like viruses, engaged in meaningless replication and perpetuation of our species, our consciousness of self and the world about us an accidental neurological illusion of no significance. None of us believes this to be true, do we? It's almost a cliche to point out that even those philosophers who argue professionally that life is meaningless and that our every act and thought is determined by the interaction of our genes with our environment don't really believe it. Otherwise, why would they bother writing down their thoughts for their fellow ants to read?

The greatest miracle of all existence, I suspect, is existence itself, the fact that there is any reality at all -- matter, energy, space, time, light, dark, distance, change, stability. Once I accept this miracle, once I take on faith that the perceptions of my senses reflect an exterior reality and that life is not just a weird dream, I have no diffficulty in believing further that our lives are imbued with meaning. The details of that meaning may be interpreted differently in subtle ways by different religious traditions. But our ultimate faith is the same: I am here for a purpose, and have been given an intelligence and a will with which I can contemplate and fulfill that purpose.

So Happy Easter, you world of wonders -- you six billion truly significant, awesome, diverse but yet similar, and infinitely precious individuals! I could have easily said Joyous Passover, or Blessed Mohammed's Birthday, or have given similar recognition to all the other religions and philosophies that are united in helping us discern, celebrate and fulfill the meaning of our lives, and ultimately, I suppose, of our Universe.

But I speak from my own tradition.

Happy Easter. He is indeed risen!