Speaking of ignorance, and celebrating its necessity in discovering knowledge, I read an epithalamium today, a poem celebrating a bride and/or bridegroom, etymology: Latin & Greek; Latin epithalamium, from Greek epithalamion, from epi- + thalamos room, bridal chamber; perhaps akin to Greek tholos rotunda.

I, of course, being ignorant saw the word and being curious looked it up. The link took me to this:
The epithalamium was employed as a literary form for the first time by Sappho, who wrote:
Raise up the roof-tree—
a wedding song!
High up, carpenters—
a wedding song!
The bridegroom is coming,
the equal of Ares,
much bigger than a big man.
which got me to thinking about roof beams which then took me to a remembrance of J.D. Salinger’s story Raise High the Roof Beams, Carpenters, a story which initially is about a wedding and finally, after all these years of not knowing what the heck the title had to do with the story, although I really liked the title and felt intellectually smug telling friends about such a fine story, my initial ignorance led me to the realization that Salinger’s inspiration for the title of the story was a poem by Sappho.

Voila! Better late than never.

And now, back to the blissful state of ignorance anticipating more
inquisitiveness leading to Oh! if not Om.

The minister/writer wrote
about a student of his. It
went something like in
a rough paraphrase, “If
he rejected the caricature
of Christianity that was
in his mind, I could not
blame him. If he accepted
Christianity, he was accept-
ing something about which
he knew so little,” and that,
of course, is the glory — that
state of ignorance, the start-
ing point, the beginning, and,
yet, it so often, early on, be-
comes the end point or what
turns out to be a zero sum
game for everyone if that
student enters the ministry,
a closed mind to a fathom-
less, endless experience of
enlightenment accompanied
by ignorance accompanied
by enlightenment and on and
on and I, diploma and a preach-
ing award in hand, had the
temerity (It was called “A
Calling.”) to preach on
eternal verities when in
my yet wet-behind-the-ears
years. Thankfully, the congreg-
ants had the kindness to forgive
me and pray that I may catch
on. One particularly kind man,
slipped a ten-dollar bill in
my hand each Sunday as he
greeted me following worship.
It wasn’t a gift in gratitude for
a wise sermon, I don’t think.
He said something like, “Here,
take your wife out for a nice
lunch.” My hunch? I think he
was commiserating with her
and for her for having to listen
to me week in and week out
in a marriage which had just
begun and, therefore, she
deserved some kind of a
gesture of kindness. Back in
the day, that ten bucks bought
the best view in the best
restaurant for Sunday brunch
in Manhattan.

He embraced ignorance as
the only way
of knowing
anything, anything at all
that might come his way.

There are those in politics,
philosophy and religion
who through
history
did postulate
this theory
or that to save humanity
before it is too late.

Here’s the truth, there’s
the truth, everywhere
there’s somebody’ truth, truth, truth.

While not wanting to
sound uncouth,
he realized that the
only truth was
that he was ignorant
of whatever was true.

And so starting with
that assumption, knowing
full well
how to spell
assume,
he assumed he knew nothing
and knew nothing very well.

He was a first class ignoramus
but who was soon to become famous,
because he devised a system
of finding out just one thing.

He had a thesis and an antithesis
and soon discovered the synthesis
which, ironically, led him to
the Myth of Sisyphus.

Are we really just destined to push the
rock up the mountain only to have it fall back again?

Are all human efforts in vain
to find the eternal golden vein
which will secure humanity again and again?

Who can predict what will come next
seeing how close we have come to non-exist?

And so he has decided to live in ignorance
and take his wife to the next dance
hoping the red button doesn’t get pushed
and humanity is extinguished.

But there are no guarantees,
no promises to be made,
except to live in the ignorance that’s bliss
and give his wife a good morning and goodnight kiss

and say, “I love you, dear,” and
then hear eternal words so true,
“Oh, dear, I love you, too.”

And so he concluded he could not
know more than this: the eternal
worth of a loving kiss.

The DNA doesn’t lie;
less peaceful Dutch
blood and more bloody
British blood and a wee
bit Indian from some-
where between the sheets
off an Indian street
where my oppressor
English ancestor said,
“Come hither, my sweet.”
and my oppressed ancestor
had no say, and even
till this day I’m
chronically confused
about which way and
what to say — oppressor
one day; then oppressed,
without say. I guess it
really is all in the
blood, as they say.

The big, solar-powered buffalo
roared down 16th street and
screeched to a stop. “Senior
all day pass, please.” “Changer

broken; get the pass when you
transfer.” “Will do.” “How are
you, Native American man,
Lakota from South Dakota rid-

ing the range up from the ashes?
I was with you at Wounded Knee
and heard the cries and saw the
eyes and the one lone rifle placed

in your grandfather’s hand in
the snow. You know?” “I heard
those same cries, bro.” “How are
you, Romanian man, on your way

to tear down the stand you put up
last week at the US Open?”
“Thanks for the ride.” The buffalo
roared down Roosevelt Road

and ‘whoa-ed’ to a stop. “Senior
all day pass, please.” “Three
bucks; let’s see the proof.”
“Surely, you spoof. Okay,

here you go.” 3rd street — time
to meet my buddy for some
coffee at the sidewalk café
and we shouted above the

roar of all the buffalo stamp-
eding while heeding every
raised hand — “Whoa” at every
bus stop in the desert today.

He dreams of jogging
but just walks around the house
in his jogging shoes.

In his jogging shoes,
he has a bounce in his step
dodging rattlesnakes.

Scorpions move out
of his way toward the kitchen
so he can hydrate.

He must avoid cramps
while on the hot, dusty trail
conjured in his head.

Maybe tomorrow
the shoes will take him outside
to breathe desert air.

Bemoaning the fact that his
kids don’t pat him on the back
more he asked his wife rhetor-
ically, “Do you recall praising

your mom and dad for much
of anything when you were
growing up?” Then he said
proudly and without hesitation,

“Me? I was selected to be
on a panel of outstanding
high school students at our
public high school…no,

really, seriously, dear, I was.
Back to what I was saying: I
was on this panel and we were
asked what our families had

done to help us along our then
short way. They didn’t say,
‘then short way.’ When it came
to my turn, I said I was really

happy that my mother and
father provided a caring,
loving Christian home. The
moderator of the panel in a

near knee-jerk reaction inter-
jected that surely I meant some
kind of all-encompassing relig-
ious upbringing. Well, I didn’t

but, after all, I was just a
high school kid speaking out
of his own parochial experience
in a public high school. It was-

n’t until years later I under-
stood what the moderator felt
compelled to interject and, of
course, by that time I concurred.

That being said….” “That’s
enough being said, dear,” his
wife said, emphatically. “Yes,
we all wish our kids would

affirm us more than they do,
but we didn’t and they won’t
and that’s that,” she chimed
in with a note of finality.

We are all-accepting,
all-inclusive,
all-welcoming —
we are progressive
Christians at worship
and in our humility
we are, if truth be
told, a little smug
about that.
The congregation is
made up of a rainbow
coalition of God’s
children — blacks,
whites, browns, yellows,
reds, men, women,
young, old, straights,
LGBTs. Early on in
the service, we
knowingly and proudly
pass the peace from
one to another. Still
for all that, last
Sunday, there was
this family three
rows up — grand-
father and grand-
mother, daughter,
son–in-law,
and three adorable
little girls who
sat quietly for the
full hour and one
little kid who
couldn’t keep her
mouth shut while
her parents fawned,
and cooed and
smiled and kept
handing the little
girl back and forth
and grandpa and
grandma winked
and smiled and
cooed and I wonder-
ed why the family,
seemingly oblivious
to anyone’s right to
not have to listen
to the whining of
the little brat, didn’t
drop her off at the
nursery following the
children’s message,
which would have
been the courteous
thing to do.
I couldn’t hear the
sermon which later
my wife, who appar-
ently has better ears
to hear than I have,
told me was about
tolerance.

I am a privileged, white, American male.
I am a middle-class, senior citizen.
I write in deep humility and appreciation of what simply has been my reality.
I write this because I am a fortunate beneficiary of life in America.
I’m a first generation American on my Swedish father’s side.
I’m a third generation American on my Dutch mother’s side.
My parents completed tenth grade.
My father came to America from Sweden
as a five-year-old.
His mother, the grandmother I never knew,
died in childbirth when my father was eight.
His father, the grandfather I never knew,
worked in an East Chicago, IN steel mill.
My grandfather died in the Spanish Influenza
pandemic of 1918 when my father was thirteen.
My mother, one of six children, was the only
one in her family to have a job during the
Great Depression and every cent of her salary
went to keep the family going.
My father hopped freights as a hobo during the depression.
My father worked as a guide at the 1933 World’s Fair.
My father started his own business as a monument salesman.
My mother was a bookkeeper and, later,
a clerk in a women’s dress shop.
When I was a junior in high school,
my father had a major heart attack.
When I was a senior in high school,
my father, unable to provide financially
for his family because of ill-health,
committed suicide.
My mother had a nervous breakdown and
then went on to hold down two jobs to
keep the family going.
I went to community college on a scholarship.
I completed college on a scholarship earning
a Bachelor of Arts degree.
I completed four years of seminary
graduating with a Master of Divinity
degree.
I completed the Doctor of Ministry
degree (with distinction).
I published approximately twenty-five
articles, essays, think-pieces,
editorials and short-stories.
I retired after forty-years of ordained ministry.
I have, in retirement, published two books of
poetry in collaboration with my daughter.
I live comfortably in retirement with my
wife of twenty-one years. We are both
widowed, our late spouses having died
tragically in their forties.
I was given every break afforded white males
in America.
As a first generation, white, American male
I have no patience for any and all — read that
— all white, working class Americans who
resent and bemoan their situation in life and
who voted for what they mistakenly believe
will be their white savior — Donald Trump.
I have nine grandchildren and step-grandchildren
of multiple ethnicities but who are all of one race —
the human race, and I trust and pray that they and
all other children of immigrants (meaning everyone
in America) will be granted all the opportunities
afforded and guaranteed in the United States Constitution
and Bill of Rights.
I will work to help secure the dignity and rights of all
people who are in America and who will come to America
— all ethnic groups, all men, all women, all children,
every sexual orientation, every religious preference
— all, without reservation, that they may be as
privileged as I have been — and even more so.

I don’t care at all for didactic poetry.
Simply tell me your story
and I’ll tell you mine;
then we shall sit back and see
and, perhaps, share a glass
or two of some very nice wine.