Memories…

So many memories flood the mind. Times of childhood triggered by smells, touch, wafting breezes. Sounds also cause recalls. Taste, too. First time seeing – really seeing a mountain. First time hearing the layers of tones in a chord that unlocked a symphony. A play that awakened the mind and the power of its logic.


Classrooms remembered, complete with some of the students, but certainly the teachers. Fondly remembering them. Their names are a bit cloudy now, but their faces, their attentive responses to questions, and their feeling knowing our pain and frustrations.


School years mush toward college and beyond. Then grad school with jobs in between degrees. But jobs, many and ever so different. Differing skills called upon, some hastily created! We built relationships in those days, relationships which enabled work to get done. On a university campus we sorted out what the students needed while they expressed their outrage against sexism, racism and unwanted wars in Southeast Asia. Yes, those were the days. Protests and riots, on campus and off. Police missteps, too. Not a tidy time in America.


Nor today. Social change is so similar from age to age yet we do not feel it is. No, this riot is different from yesteryears. This issue is more pressing than the one we championed in 1968, or 1969, or 1972. Fervent then as fervent today. Righteous, too, then and now. Hurtful and dangerous, expensive damage to persons and property. All part of the whole. All necessary to feel the weight of seriousness of the time.


This too shall pass, we murmur, only we are not sure it will. We hope that passing does not cover up what is needed. Will time muffle our current passion for change and allow the old to continue unchanged? I hope not. We need something different. We need justice. We need change. And we need it with good humor and generosity of spirit.


We white people have had a good run at privilege. It is time we shared that with everyone else. We will be better for it. And the others? They should prosper and soar like eagles.


That’s what investing in others accomplishes. Eagles. Achievements. Soaring new heights.


Sounds good to me. Good for all of us.


June 7, 2020