REFLECTIONS ON HOME IN COLUMBIA
We are well into the “New Year”, 2016.
The unusually mild weather has made it easy for Lloyd and me to
continue our walks. While walking I am
often mindful of what these unseasonably warm days in January mean for the
future of our planet.
January 14 of this week marks one full year since I no longer
held public elected office after 37 years.
Though I clearly loved and valued my world work during all these years,
I have had a beautiful, peaceful year.
As I go about living in Columbia
Some of the pleasures Lloyd and I now enjoy include having more
time for good TV programs and good movies.
I have been surprised by how many there are. Watching the Kennedy Center awards program
when numerous magnificent musicians and performers were given national
recognition I was literally transported back 50 years when James Taylor sang
one of our all-time favorites, “Up on the Roof” in honoring Carole King. We witnessed President Obama wipe a tear from
his eye.
The quality and variety of music offerings right here in our
community is edifying. Last night Lloyd
and I attended a magnificent performance in the Chamber Music Series of the
Candlelight Concert Society at Howard Community College Columbia newtown
This evening I will be attending the Howard County Concert
Orchestra’s “Viennese New Year Celebration” conducted by my friend, Ron
Mutchnik, who was inspired to create this performance, including ballet
dancers, when he visited Vienna
We are blessed with numerous other musical and theatrical groups
whose talents we plan to enjoy throughout 2016.
I am grateful to Lloyd for drafting and sponsoring the county
legislation which created the Howard County Arts Council when he served on the
Howard County Council during the 80’s.
REFLECTIONS ON ZACH
One day last week, while doing regular chores around Columbia
REFLECTIONS ON BALTIMORE
Some of you have told me that you like to read my comments on
articles from publications relating to
public policy in the city of Baltimore Maryland United States
Following are twelve recent articles and editorials from the Baltimore Baltimore Maryland
One of the greatest examples of economic injustice is not
covered in these articles - the lack of a range of new housing costs in the
thousands of new residential units being built in our own community in Downtown
Columbia – almost all are upper
end. I have found no accurate reporting
on the fact that big profits will be made while leaving moderate and low income
people literally “in the dust”.
REFLECTIONS ON OUR PLANET BEYOND THE UNITED STATES
On Wednesday, January 13, Lloyd and I will leave for three weeks
in Southeast Asia . This will be our first journey to this part
of our planet. We will be visiting Thailand , Laos ,
Cambodia , Viet Nam , and Singapore
I will be carrying with me some of the writings of two of my
greatest spiritual teachers: Thich Nhat Hanh, a world-known Vietnamese monk,
and Thomas Merton, a U.S. Catholic monk who spent considerable time in Thailand Seven Story
Mountain
We have also revisited some of the films about this region –
Indochine, Bridge on the River Kwai, and Good Morning Viet Nam with our beloved
Robin Williams. The latter film also
served to remind me all too clearly of the fear of the
draft among my friends when we were fresh out of high school and even more
strongly about one of our nation’s least admirable eras.
REFLECTIONS ON OUR UNIVERSE
Lloyd and I are also indulging ourselves with more time reading
our favorite periodicals to which we subscribe:
The New Yorker, The Atlantic, and Harper’s.
The January edition of Harper’s contained an article which I am
unable to access for inclusion in this message.
So here is a synopsis of “Trying to Get a Handle on the Unfathomable
Hugeness of Everything.”
Alan Lightman, a physicist teaching at MIT and a novelist who
authored “Einstein’s Dreams,” writes that most physicists agree on the big-bang
theory and that 14 billion years ago the entire observable universe was
“roughly a million billion billion times SMALLER than a single atom” and has
been expanding ever since to its current size of something like 100 million
galaxies.”
I have incorporated this “Unfathomable Hugeness” into my
awareness each night when I look out on the night sky through the two large
windows by our bed – one above the headboard and one two feet away from “my
side”. I have converted that side
windowsill into somewhat of an altar with photos of Zach and other family
members as well as a hand-printed letter that Zach, at the age of ten, penned
for Lloyd and me after he came home from his several months at Hopkins with his
first brain tumor.
Zach and I loved to look at the stars together at the beach and
we spoke of them during his last two years.
The “altar” includes small works of art with the following quotes:
“If we only look down, there will never be stars.” Hakuin
“The darker the night, the brighter the stars.” Fyodor Dostoyevsky
“Surely now he’s the one giving light to the stars.” Unknown
“In one of the stars I shall be living
In one of them I shall
be laughing
And so it will be as if
all the stars were laughing
When you look at the sky
at night." The
Little Prince
Antoine
de Saint-Exupery
Pools of
sorrow, waves of joy
Are
drifting through my open mind
Possessing
and caressing me
Across the
Universe
- Lennon and McCartney
May we all live a life filled with constant awareness of
“unfathomable hugeness”, love, and peace during this year of 2016.
~Liz
No comments:
Post a Comment