Reckonings: a journal of justice, hope and historytag:typepad.com,2003:weblog-2038102009-05-21T09:30:45+02:00"That justice can rise up, and hope and history rhyme." - Reflections on psyche and spirit, politics, poetry and proseTypePadRobert Bly's "In the Month of May"tag:typepad.com,2003:post-670956432009-05-21T09:30:45+02:002009-05-21T09:30:45+02:00Robert Bly's poem came to me today, over the transom, through the ether, at the right moment, and as I read and reread, resonance grew. It is a love poem, a layered weaving of season, spirit, the vivid life of an aging, unfinished, still changing soul waiting for - celebrating - the miraculous. I find such tenderness in his last lines: Along the roads, I see so many places I would like us to spend the night. In the Month of May In the month of May when all leaves open, I see when I walk how well all things lean on each other, how the bees work, the fish make their living the first day. Monarchs fly high; then I understand I love you with what in me is unfinished. I love you with what in me is still changing, what has no head or arms or legs, what has not found its body. And why shouldn't the miraculous, caught on this earth, visit the old man alone in his hut? And why shouldn't Gabriel, who loves honey, be fed with our own radishes and walnuts? And lovers, tough ones, how many there are whose holy bodies are not...John BoettigerA Rural Rabbi's Challengetag:typepad.com,2003:post-662390832009-05-01T14:17:05+02:002009-05-20T14:55:00+02:00Editor's note: My son Joshua is an occasional contributor to Reckonings, and is the subject of this good portrait in the Rutland (Vermont) Herald earlier this spring. The website of his Beth-El congregation in Bennington has recently been spruced, and includes some podcasts of Joshua's reflections. I particularly like his thoughts on herding golden calves. A Rural Rabbi's Challenge Reprinted from the Rutland (VT) Herald Joshua Boettiger can trace his Protestant roots back to his great-grandfather Franklin D. Roosevelt. But the 35-year-old would rather talk about why he became a rabbi in Vermont. Boettiger’s father was the son of the president’s first child and only daughter, Anna Eleanor, and, in a twist, the White House correspondent for the ferociously anti-New Deal Chicago Tribune. His mother, for her part, grew up in the only Jewish family in Frankfurt, Ind. “According to Jewish law,” he says, “if your mother is Jewish, you’re Jewish.” Born in Maine and raised in Massachusetts, Boettiger traveled to Israel as a religion major at New York’s Bard College. But he didn’t feel the full strength of his Jewish ancestry until he had to hide it while studying Arabic and Islam his junior year in Syria. “In the...John BoettigerWars, Endless Warstag:typepad.com,2003:post-635903512009-03-03T17:57:03+01:002009-03-03T17:59:56+01:00Bob Herbert offers a wise and deeply cautionary account of the peril implicit in continuing US military commitments in Afghanistan and Iraq, and the grim lessons of Vietnam and the fate of Lyndon Johnson's Great Society. It is not only billions of dollars that are at stake. It is the US's and the world's recovery from a terrible economic crisis. It is the fate of Barack Obama's program for restoration of an American democracy committed to the well-being and equal opportunity for all of its citizens. It is the awful daily accumulating costs of an insane war. (Item: "some 300,000 [American service members] are currently suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder or depression, and 320,000 have most likely experienced a traumatic brain injury.") As a companion to Bob Herbert's piece below, here is a striking assessment of the prospects for the realization of President Obama's plans by Andrew Bacevich, who teaches international relations at Boston University and is author of The Limits of Power: The End of American Exceptionalism: He wrote: A promise to end the war in Iraq formed the cornerstone of Barack Obama's run for the White House. Yet his announced "withdrawal" plan ends nothing. It serves chiefly to...John BoettigerA hole in the floortag:typepad.com,2003:post-635310592009-03-02T15:55:19+01:002009-03-02T16:10:33+01:00I had an exchange of notes the other day with one of my sons, thinking of the many homes he and I shared over the years of living together and then the visits with each other as he grew into adulthood and began to find and live in his own homes. My mind lingered, as it will, on the sheer number of comings and goings and the frequency of moving, the complex tangle of feelings and forces at work in leaving a home and breaking new ground. I was astonished, dumb wondering as I counted from memory 43 homes in 70 years. I can still walk through all but the very earliest, the first two. Too many comings and goings, I wrote. And he replied, from his own memory drawn from the well of experience we share, "I remember you saying once when we were hiking in Wonalancet – that day we got lost, remember? - and looking over the mountains and you saying, ‘another place in that interminable succession of places’ - and the best we can do is to be present for them – their grief, their promise, their tears of joy, forgiveness, loss, return. And when we...John BoettigerE.J. Dionne and David Brooks on Reinhold Niebuhr as "Obama's theologian"tag:typepad.com,2003:post-635286492009-03-02T14:51:06+01:002009-03-02T19:59:46+01:00A fascinating and lively program. David Brooks, E.J. Dionne on the Legacy of Reinhold Niebuhr and the Future of Christian Realism from Speaking of Faith on Vimeo.John BoettigerStump, a champ at age 10 (human equivalent, 70)tag:typepad.com,2003:post-628537012009-02-14T17:24:49+01:002009-03-02T20:00:53+01:00As I anticipate in a few weeks time joining the ranks of septuagenarians, I'm encouraged by the performance of 10-year-old Stump, a Sussex spaniel who took his victory in stride - best of show at the prestigious Westminster Kennel Club. Stump is the oldest dog to win that title in the competition's 133-year history. Gail Collins confirms that he is a natural: "Stump, whose hobbies are sleeping and sleeping, is actually Champion Clussexx Three D Grinchy Glee, but nobody his age can remember all that. After a refreshing workout that involved a short walk around the driveway, he trotted onto the stage and wiped the floor with his younger competition."John BoettigerElizabeth Gilbert on the nature of geniustag:typepad.com,2003:post-626366272009-02-10T15:10:55+01:002009-05-21T09:35:33+02:00John BoettigerA poem for Christmastag:typepad.com,2003:post-602755902008-12-21T14:38:42+01:002008-12-21T14:38:42+01:00W. S. Merwin's poem "Alba" is not exactly Christmas seasonal, so clearly is it set in the literal flowering of spring time. Still, there is much of the spirit of Christmas in it - the journey afoot and on mule, the blossom of new life, the unexpected companionship, a gift of breath, of song, a repeated song of praise, a kind of prayer, a greater gift for which we haven't words. Alba Climbing in the mist I came to a terrace wall and saw above it a small field of broad beans in flower their white fragrance was flowing through the first light of morning there a little way up the mountain where I had made my way through the olive groves and under the blossoming boughs of the almonds above the old hut of the charcoal burner where suddenly the scent of the bean flowers found me and as I took the next step I heard the creak of the harness and the mule's shod hooves striking stones in the furrow and then the low voice of the man talking softly praising the mule as he walked behind through the cloud in his white shirt along the row and...John Boettiger"What happened to our money?"tag:typepad.com,2003:post-602048942008-12-19T09:05:14+01:002008-12-19T09:05:14+01:00A lot of people personally, and a lot of charitable and philanthropic organizations, are asking "What happened to our money?" I think Paul Krugman has nailed a pretty good answer. The task - challenge to the Obama administration - is how to remedy the corruption Krugman identifies, which starts in the financial industry but is far more pervasive. For a more detailed account in the NYTimes, see here. New York Times The Madoff Economy By PAUL KRUGMAN December 19, 2008 The revelation that Bernard Madoff — brilliant investor (or so almost everyone thought), philanthropist, pillar of the community — was a phony has shocked the world, and understandably so. The scale of his alleged $50 billion Ponzi scheme is hard to comprehend. Paul Krugman Yet surely I’m not the only person to ask the obvious question: How different, really, is Mr. Madoff’s tale from the story of the investment industry as a whole? The financial services industry has claimed an ever-growing share of the nation’s income over the past generation, making the people who run the industry incredibly rich. Yet, at this point, it looks as if much of the industry has been destroying value, not creating it. And it’s...John BoettigerContemplationtag:typepad.com,2003:post-601623022008-12-18T09:13:25+01:002008-12-18T09:13:25+01:00I often feel more like the dog.John Boettiger