2015 has begun, gang!!! And, yes, it brings with it a whole new set of challenges and mysteries. The year
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| Dave and the Century Plant |
that just ended was full of very demanding trials and I have briefly shared one of the most difficult with you. That was the loss of my wonderful brother, David. He was a very interesting person and one who did not fit any particular stereotype you could try to apply to him. He was a hard worker, a scholar, a patron of the arts and a very liberal thinker. His last months with us were fraught with difficulty for him - physically and emotionally. But, you would have never known he was facing those challenges. It was not his way. In the last few weeks of his life he finally let some of us know just how difficult things had been - but - he also reassured us that things were getting better. He was really big on sending his friends and family notes, articles, photographs and myriad things to keep us engaged with the world around us. So, his final communication - in keeping with his life-long devotion to the process of education - was both reassuring and portentous in what it foreshadowed. But, it gave us all directions. Instructions. A way to deal with what he knew we would face. It was a quote taken from T. H. White's work "The Once and Future King". In book 1, "The Sword In The Stone", White presents Merlin, the wonderful wizard of Arthurian legend, as he seeks to instruct the young King Arthur who has begun to fall into self-pity and sadness as a result of his perceived inability to meet the challenges facing him. In response, Merlin confronts him quickly:
“The best thing for being sad," replied Merlin,
beginning to puff and blow, "is to learn something. That's the only
thing that never fails. You may grow old and trembling in your
anatomies, you may lie awake at night listening to the disorder of your
veins, you may miss your only love, you may see the world about you
devastated by evil lunatics, or know your honour trampled in the sewers
of baser minds. There is only one thing for it then — to learn. Learn
why the world wags and what wags it. That is the only thing which the
mind can never exhaust, never alienate, never be tortured by, never fear
or distrust, and never dream of regretting. Learning is the only thing
for you. Look what a lot of things there are to learn.”
So, gang, I suppose what I'm telling you is that 2015 will be a year of learning for us. Yes, I know ... some of us are getting a bit "long of tooth" and aren't quite up to the challenges we once faced. But - that's what Merlin (and Dave) were telling us. Get yourself together .... Learn!!!! See ya.
