SOMETHING MORE GAINED IN TRANSLATION?

WIT AND WISDOM OF GHALIB

My husband turned 82 years old  this past October. I had told him that we would celebrate this big birthday for the entire month of October. 

October is a special month--there is a change in the light : the air seems molten gold that floods the world with some hidden meaning.

As a gift  I got him two CDs of the ghazals of Ghalib set to music. From Punjab in India, my husband  can speak and read and write URDU.  He likes to listen to the ghazals set to music  and sometimes he translates the Urdu phrases as they are sung and repeated. One he noticed today "One desire can eat up an entire life; desires come by the thousands/I 've received what I asked for many times; but it was not enough."

 I once would have thought that this insatiability is one of the proofs of human failure, now I see it more as a sign that yearning is our default position--our glory. There is something that we want that cannot be satisfied by mortal things. 
Shakespeare has one of his characters say "I have immortal longings." 
Augustine said that our souls are made for God and we will be "restless until we rest in Thee." 
Shelley, another poet, wrote about "the desire of the moth for the star, the day for the morrow"

 Is this restlessness the best thing about us?  Could it be that we know that we were meant for something more than this mortal coil--that we are hungry to be reunited with the spirit that made us?  
Writing about the endless, hopeful human activity -- when there is no cause to hope,

 Ghalib writes "The efforts I make in my life resemble a bird in a cage/ Who can't stop gathering straws for her nest." 

My husband often  chuckles when he reads Ghalib. I have asked him to  explain the joke to me.  It is not  found in  many of the translations.

Here is an example of  one funny line from Ghalib:
 " God sent an angel to drive Adam from Eden, we've all heard that story,/But when you threw me out, I felt something much worse had happened".

IS THE JOKE ON US?

A STRANGE WISH

Reading a poem by George Herbert who has become my new favorite poet, I come upon these lines that startle me so much I make one of those involuntary sounds Is it a chortle or a snort or a little stifled shout? The poem is titled AFFLICTION I--and here are the lines that shook me:

Now I am here, what thou wilt do with me

None of my books will show

I read. and sigh, and wish I were a tree;

For sure I then should grow

To fruit or shade: at least some bird would trust

Her household to me; and I should be just.

I have often had the exact thought and could never share it. I wanted to be a tree so that I would not be free to choose, I would just be what I was supposed to be. If I were an acorn I would be an oak-- not change to a cherry or long to be a maple. My freedom messes me up-- it makes me anxious. What if I make the wrong choice? What if I miss the point and choose the wrong job or the wrong husband?

 Then I saw that God requires freedom. That is what makes us great and worthy--that we choose to love God and to follow Him--we could and do choose otherwise. Divinity has no interest in coerced love. We must invite him into our lives. He will knock and knock but he will not enter unless he is invited. There is something magical and miraculous about that fact of freedom. He gave freedom to the angels and they revolted. He gave freedom to Adam and Eve and they ate of the forbidden fruit. But not the horses or elephants or the lions or cows--they simply follow their natures and instincts and cannot be faulted.

We are free to choose  and that freedom  defines our humanity.  God loves all of  His creation -- but we must will to love Him back.  

Advent Thoughts

It seems I am  often  starting this blog over. Like me it is flailing trying to figure out what  I should or can be in a  circumstance where my choices are coming up against my physical limitations.
I just re-read Tennyson's poem abour  Odysseus  setting out again in old age I will post a portion it here:

Free hearts, free foreheads—you and I are old;
Old age hath yet his honour and his toil;
Death closes all: but something ere the end,
Some work of noble note, may yet be done,
Not unbecoming men that strove with Gods.
The lights begin to twinkle from the rocks:
The long day wanes: the slow moon climbs: the deep
Moans round with many voices. Come, my friends,
’Tis not too late to seek a newer world.
Push off, and sitting well in order smite
The sounding furrows; for my purpose holds
To sail beyond the sunset, and the baths
Of all the western stars, until I die.
It may be that the gulfs will wash us down:
It may be we shall touch the Happy Isles,
And see the great Achilles, whom we knew.
Tho’ much is taken, much abides; and tho’
We are not now that strength which in old days
Moved earth and heaven, that which we are, we are;
One equal temper of heroic hearts,
Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will
To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield. 

He says that though much is taken much abides.  This emphasis on  what we have left in life is important to me.  It is the attitude I am trying to take to  consider  again the great value of my husband who has dementia.  Much has been taken from him,  but there is still something wonderful left and that seems to be the core of his goodness and simplicity and  fidelity.

That does not mean that I am  not still  annoyed with his repetitive questions and  lack of memory, but I  stop myself and  admire the ways he still tries to contribute. He is always trying to make things better. This trait has been in the forefront for 47 years of marriage.  When I focus on all that we still have, I feel a steadying  hand in mine and  a deep sense that all will be well.

A MUG'S GAME?

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The  phrase that   labelled  poetry  "a mug's game" is from the poet TS Eliot. What do you think?.


"[Poetry] may make us from time to time a little more aware of the deeper, unnamed feelings which form the substratum of our being, to which we rarely penetrate; for our lives are mostly a constant evasion of ourselves." "Poetry is not a turning loose of emotion, but an escape from emotion; it is not the expression of personality, but an escape from personality." "As things are, and as fundamentally they must always be, poetry is not a career, but a mug's game. No honest poet can ever feel quite sure of the permanent value of what he has written: He may have wasted his time and messed up his life for nothing. "

This idea of THE MUG'S GAME may be  more the problem of a career poet, but it does not apply to the  poetic vocation. Since I believe in universal creativity and have found that idea of creativity as a basic  human trait--in fact one of the defining traits of humanity- has received support and confirmation from  psychologists.

What this means is that  the fact that most people do not  exercise their creative gifts is a problem for society and a loss.
So I see  it as an imperative for all teachers, parents and  adult guides to  create an atmosphere that is encouraging  and nurturing to creative  impulses in the young and the old, rich and poor.  

Trying to Recover in the Bucket

Shirt   Carl Sandburg I remember once I ran after you and tagged the fluttering       shirt of you in the wind. Once many days ago I drank a glassful of something and       the picture of you shivered and slid on top of the stuff. And again it was nobody else but you I heard in the       singing voice of a careless humming woman. One night when I sat with chums telling stories at a       bonfire flickering red embers, in a language its own       talking to a spread of white stars:                           It was you that slunk laughing                           in the clumsy staggering shadows. Broken answers of remembrance let me know you are       alive with a peering phantom face behind a doorway       somewhere in the city’s push and fury. Or under a pack of moss and leaves waiting in silence       under a twist of oaken arms ready as ever to run       away again when I tag the fluttering shirt of you.            This poem is in the public domain.  FA

HAMILTON--THE EPILOGUE

I am a little amazed at the brouhaha raised over the fact that an actor stepped  out in costume and spoke directly to the audience about a current political problem on  Broadway,  This was a practice that became expected in the theatres of London after Ben Jonson presented a spoken EPILOGUE to his play Cynthia's Revels(1600). During the Restoration  Epilogues used as political  commentaries became common  on the British stage. Epilogues were speeches  that addressed political realities and were part of the understanding that theatre formed an occasion for the political and ethical as well as emotional and  psychological education of the spectator.

Let's be accurate and recount what actually  happened after the performance of HAMILTON  when the actor playing the role of Aaron Burr stepped forward in costume and spoke to the audience  at the play's curtain. He was not rude or loud--he was asked to speak on behalf of the show's producers, he  spoke directly to Vice-President elect Pence.Here's the transcript of what Dixon said to the new vice president-elect on behalf of the Hamilton cast:

Thank you so much for joining us tonight. You know, we had a guest in the audience this evening. And Vice President-elect Pence, I see you're walking out but I hope you will hear us just a few more moments. There's nothing to boo here ladies and gentlemen. There's nothing to boo here, we're all here sharing a story of love.

We have a message for you, sir. We hope that you will hear us out. And I encourage everybody to pull out your phones and tweet and post because this message needs to be spread far and wide, OK?

Vice President-elect Pence, we welcome you and we truly thank you for joining us here at Hamilton: An American Musical, we really do. We, sir, we are the diverse America who are alarmed and anxious that your new administration will not protect us — our planet, our children, our parents — or defend us and uphold our inalienable rights, sir. But we truly hope that this show has inspired you to uphold our American values and to work on behalf of all of us. All of us.

Again, we truly thank you for sharing this show. This wonderful American story told by a diverse group of men [and] women of different colors, creeds, and orientations.

The statement, which doesn't seem "very rude" to me, was written jointly by Miranda, Hamilton's director Thomas Kail, and lead producer, Jeffrey Seller, according to the New York Times.

The Joy of Victory banishes the Agony of Defeat in Cleveland

Shooting water guns at an ecstatic crowd, Tristan Thompson is making his way   through the streets of Cleveland.  They are celebrating in Cleveland and I am celebrating with them. I am watching NBA TV.  What a relief to see a city celebrating instead of grieving; to see a people proud of  who they are and what they have accomplished.  This feels like a salve to the open wounds of terror and fear that have afflicted our nation,

That  National Victory means so much to Cleveland, and it means so much to me. It seems to hold  out a promise to me and to all people who  feel defeated--VICTORY IS POSSIBLE!

I wrote that last year and never posted it--when led by LeBron James  The Cavaliers were  the best team in the NBA. Now we are preparing for another celebration of another type of victory as  Donald Trump  prepares to take over the reins of the American government,  Instead of  helping our nation to heal each day we're bombarded with more sabre-rattling and threats about  nuclear  re-armament and the  un -leashing of another Arms Race.  We have the President-Elect questioning the  findings of our 17  national security organizations.  These are scary times.

I try to counter my  distress with my usual self- comforting thoughts.

1.I do not believe that we live in a malevolent universe.
2. The arc of  human  history is always towards freedom --although it seems to be flat-lining right now.
3. The arc of time is towards an eternity of Universal Restoration--that I must own is a statement of Faith.

 I choose to believe that evolution is a positive advance towards  human perfection that will unite  us with  Divine Perfection.
Or as GK Chesterton so well said--
"IF SEEDS IN THE BLACK EARTH CAN TURN INTO SUCH BEAUTIFUL ROSES, WHAT MIGHT NOT THE HEART OF MAN BECOME IN OUR LONG JOURNEY TO THE STARS?"