The dew of little things brings morning to the heart

Saturday, April 10th, 2004

Words for Today
"Safeguarding the rights of others is the most noble and beautiful end of a human being."
The words come from Gahlil Gibran, who completed his passage here in the middle world on this day in 1931. Born in 1883, he left far too early, but not before he wrote on of the most treasured books in the world, The Prophet, a collection of humble wisdom that was something of scripture to us struggling for why we're here and what we're supposed to be up while were here back in the 1960s. Methinks it should be an eighth-grade graduate present to every child in the world. Born in Lebanon to Christian parents, he came with them to Boston in 1895, returned to study at Beirut in 1898, and eventually settled in New York City in 1912. A painter, poet, essayist, and writer of fiction, Gibran was deeply religious yet always respectful of other opinions and ideas, and always humble. He would be deeply troubled by both the arrogance of the United States in its actions over the last year in Iraq and about the presumptive, zealous nature of the far too much of Christianity in America today. Just the other day, for example, an evangelical church put a little twist on the passion of Christ – they whupped up on the Easter Bunny and broke eggs – mama don't 'llow no Easter egg rolling round here. Children were taught in no uncertain terms that there is not Easter bunny -- he's a creation of the Devil – and that it's a mighty sin for parents to observe the Resurrection of Christ with such satanic rights. Well!

Wonder what they would have thought of my six-toed-on-one-foot Uncle Roy and his clan driving through the mud (sometimes snow) into our yard with his station wagon with those magnificent Easter baskets for all of us – along with his five. Roy, my father's youngest brother, lived way down in Wahpeton – and he made it a point to come our way every Easter he possibly could with lovin' spouse Gladys, Don, Lynn, David, Paul, and Faith. Or the great fun we had decorating and dyeing eggs. 'Tis a beauuuuuuuuuuuuuuutiful day this one in Dakota – yes, there may be a few flurries, and the temperature will soar to a sizzlin' 21 degrees – but there'll be plenty of sunshine heading our way tomorrow, with a high of at least 33 – and warming once more. One day soon, the trees will just suddenly blossom – we're not much for long, lingering springs here -- soon will simply be summer.

The last couple of weeks of my battle with the insidious invader have brought the same kind of rapid change and disconcerting stuff that could try one's spirit – a week ago, I was at my son Albert and his dear wife Bobbi's abode in Madison – after finally being released from a week that left me bagged – an abdominal tube removed after draining ten or twelve pounds of fluid, full of antibiotics, and tubes running through the liver and – if all is going well – directly to the duodenum, thus bypassing my useless bile stuffed up, quad-stented bile ducts – accomplished with considerable discomfort in a procedure called percutaneous transhepatic cholangiography (PTC for short). Sedated, but totally conscious, I was told that it would be quite painful. The good doctor, a man who punctuated his efforts to get the guiding wires to where they were supposed to go with such mutterings as "Come on, you son-of-a-bitch, come on." That was Thursday, April 1 – April Fool's Day. The next morning, I was on the table for a check to see if the tubes had reached their destination. Nope. So more sedation – and the master tube pusher of St. Luke's in Milwaukee got them there. More IV antibiotics. Back to Zion and the Midwestern Regional Medical Center, removal of abdominal tube (no fun, because it was corkscrewed in), and an overnight at the place where Morty and Ollie, the cats that own my son and his wife, before the flying trip home with my lovin' spouse at the wheel of the old Subaru. I've discovered that I'm not as tough as I thought, so yesterday after receiving via Fed Ex prescriptions for pain killers, I started taking them. They work! I had a long peaceful night of rest sans pain last night after managing no more than doing maintenance on the servers that connect the office as well as this site to the Internet – they need more. I did squeeze in an inadequate tribute to my darlin' daughter (see entry for 4/09/04 if you missed it) on her birthday – and then came home nothing but R & R until an early-morning descent from bed to recliner about 5:00 A.M. Ah, but 'tis indeed a glorious day to be alive – and free from the cramps and pain – now all I have to do is to find a way to keep some food down and digested, for I'm fading fast. But I'm here – thinking of all of you, dear kola, who have sent notes of concern about this journal coming up with error messages and missing days – if I don't watch out, I'll become another Meriwether Lewis simply not writing – but out by himself wandering the woods with his faithful friend, Seaman the great Newfoundland – perhaps the only one who loved the famed explorer unconditionally, for Captain Lewis was not an easy man to like or love. Amazing what a little pain killer can do! It does, course, produce minor hallucinations – even when one is awake – which is not all that unpleasant – and tends to make one the weest bit drowsy – but for the first time in about a week, I'm feeling that, perhaps, there's more than a handful of sunrises and sunsets ahead, for there's work to be done before I take what my father-in-law Alfons Kubik referred to as a "one-way train trip to Missoula, Montana" – a phrase he heard a priest use at a funeral quite a few years back. It always cracked up Alfons to repeat this curious euphemism for the completion of one's journey in the middle world. This one I didn't hallucinate – nor the beating up of the poor old Easter bunny. At least I don't think that I did.

There's much to remember with joy and the weest indication that we humans are capable of doing what Gibran said was our reason for being here in "Today's Words." For example, forty-four years ago on this day, the Senate passed the landmark Civil Rights bill that would begin a movement in earnest to recognize the dignity and humanity of people of color – a long time acomin'. 'Twas the beginning of the sit-in movements and nonviolent protests. 'Tis the spring I graduated from high school – thinking I knew everything and not knowing much of anything. Heady times – a presidential election ahead, the last year of service for Dwight David Eisenhower -- Ike, whom we very much liked out in Hannover Township in Oliver County, the Center of the Universe – just a few miles from the center of civilization back in 1804-1805 when the Corps of Discovery wintered with the village-dwelling farmers of the great Mandan and Hidatsa nations. If the Ike we so much liked out there in Hannover Township were alive today, he would probably be rolling over in his grave – for he would not particularly like our use of violence as first response to those who seek to bring us low. 'Twas Ike who said, "I like to believe that people in the long run are going to do more to promote peace than our governments. Indeed, I think that people want peace so much that one of these days governments had better get out of the way and let them have it." He also said, "I hate war as only a soldier who has lived it can, only as one who has seen its brutality, its futility, its stupidity." And, an observation first strongly suggested by George Washington long before the enormous profits the privileged reap from war: "In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist." The appropriateness of Ike's concern are obvious in 2004 – an election year, a year past of what so many Americans thought was the swift and triumphal war with Iraq. We're still there – and there's no end in sight. The good news is that it has become increasingly more difficult to revise the past – the fourth estate, the press, has become omnipresent, make it mightily to do what Ike said was that which we should avoid at all costs: "Don't join the book burners. Do not think you are going to conceal thoughts by concealing evidence that they ever existed."

I cannot express my gratitude for your concern and love, dear kola – if anything will bring more sunrises like the magnificent one this morning in glorious Dakota, 'twill be because of the amazing grace extended by you and my family – I thank you, my kola. Lest we forget, we in this society of getting and spending are not doing very well at putting people before power – one more observation from Ike – "Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired, signifies in the final sense a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed." We're stealing from those we are here in the middle world to look out for. Ah, my dear kola – there's work to be done – together – as kola, that special kind of friend. We leave the last word today to Gibran – "In the sweetness of friendship let there be laughter, and sharing of pleasures. For in the dew of little things the heart finds its morning and is refreshed."

Let there be laughter, music and great pleasure in your day as you take care of yourselves to be about our work.

Ev Albers