Thoughts and Interesting Stories---Jeff Clark

Even though I have no personal connection the attack on Paul Pelosi this week has deeply upset me. There is the fact that an intruder in his home fractured his skull (and arm) with a hammer when he's in his 80's; that's a heavy road to come back on. The assailant (I don't want to name him; we should never give attention to the people who do horrible things beyond what is required to punish them to avoid copycats) was looking for Mr. Pelosi's spouse, the Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi. Years ago a small fringe of conservatives started demonizing Speaker Pelosi, sometimes to energize their base, sometimes to rake in campaign contributions. All people of good-will denounced it, pointing out that in our angry society it is a short path from reading about violence to inflicting it for disturbed folk. The Republican leadership never did, though, and it spread. Kevin McCarthy recently spoke about replacing Speaker Pelosi with the coming election with the weird phrasing ...

I decided when I was younger that hope was my preferred strategy. I noticed in others and myself that despair seemed to guarantee failure. Hope didn't come with a promise of success, but despair positively guaranteed that I would not achieve what I wanted to achieve. It's been decades since then; I am observant about such things and nothing that I have seen or experienced has made me reconsider that strategy.

I am in my office during Break, undisturbed as I work and able to crank up my music without fear of disturbing others. I have a recording that I don't listen to very often because it is powerful and during much of my waking hours I want to be able to focus on others. The recording is of professionals performing a meditation on Saint John of the Cross's Dark Night of the Soul  by Ola Gjeilo. I was blessed in being able to sing this, in eight-part harmony, some years ago as an amateur during the Easter Season. It touches, in me and in others I have spoken to who have heard it, deep reserves of unworthiness, despair, hope, and grace.  It marked me for having been a part of the performance. I can not remember much of the tune, or the lyrics, or the actual experience of singing the piece. That is not how it marked me. I remember how it made me feel. I believe that is the mark of transcendent experiences, at least in my experience. The details fade but the intensity of feeling stays...

When I was in graduate school I read Lead Time by Garry Wills and it made a big impact on me. He spoke of the advantage that he had as a (at the time) magazine journalist to spend time on an article and delve deeply into context and impact in a way that does not occur with the daily (and now instantaneously) news reporting cycle. It resonated with essays that Calvin Trillin had written for the New Yorker (collected in Killings) on what happened after a killing and the impact on the community. This hit me hard over the weekend when I finally caught up with Caitlin Dickerson's piece for the Atlantic, We Need to Take Away Children, on the Trump administration's policy of separating, often permanently, children from would-be immigrants. I felt as if most of the big parts of the story had been public record but over a period of time; having them detailed factually in a chronology was infinitely painful to me as a parent. It is because of my winning the birth lottery that I was born ...

I turned 61 recently. As I am tentatively (health willing) planning to retire when I turn 70 I feel as if I am now officially in my last decade professionally. The only reason I bring this up is that I find myself referring more openly in conversation to "when I retire" and "before I retire". This came up several times yesterday in different contexts so whether or not I am aware of it consciously it is on my mind. Primarily with limited time (and it will fly by) I need to be selective about which opportunities I pursue in my career. The more senior I become the more challenges I am offered by colleagues and I can't take them all on. I have a lot of organizational strengths and some leadership ability and that seems to be something that I really don't want to waste. Fortunately my professional association has provided me with more; I had been envisioning a time when I would no longer be chairing a committee for them and then I was asked to chair a newly-forme...

Hurricane Ian has caused a good deal of devastation in Florida, a bit less in South Carolina, and a bit less in North Carolina. Our Family Weekend at Elon was greatly curtailed. Our home never lost power or had damage but there are trees down and a large number of folk without power in my ever-widening communities of neighborhood, city, county, state, etc. Weather events are distracting on top of everything else that they are. I try to get my head straight about Plan B's, ways to ensure that my loved ones are safe, how to communicate that I'm safe, etc. That really doesn't take long although it is adjusted as I learn more. It feels as if a large part of my mind keeps running through those details of planning with no new accomplishment and it is hard to think of other things.  I am blessed in that these moments are few. For many people weather events are more commonplace, and for even more folk non-weather events are common that have the same effect:  food insufficiency, fea...