he wanted to tell her something 
     about a dream from the night before. 
he said that the two of them traveled 
     to an island and there were gangs there 
and they had to protect each other. he 
     had no idea what the dream meant but 
he wanted her to know that it was just the 
     two of them, lovers on that harrowing 
journey — together.

There were questions about his ordination examination.
He kept inserting the word “perhaps” in his answers.

Perhaps is not a user-friendly word when it comes to
ordination exams invoking such queries as, “Does the
young man vacillate in his faith?”

Surety is expected, strong convictions about propositional
truths. After all, the flock needs to hear absolutes uttered
with conviction from the pulpit otherwise there might be
those straying into the dangerous lair of ravenous wolves
of secular prey.

The young seminary student didn’t even realize that he had
been using that language until a sympathetic examiner
approached him at lunch, to tell him the situation. As a
result, he used the word less often in the afternoon session.

If he had been older, wiser and not frightened about failure
or the need for the acceptance of his elders, he simply might
have said, “We are dealing with a great and wonderful mystery
and so, humility requires the plenteous sprinkling of the holy
word ‘perhaps’ on our oven baked (or perhaps half-baked)
commentary on revelation.”

In hind sight, the kid did just fine.

I try to think of clever, poetic ways with meters and rhymes of dealing
with the perilous situation we are in as a country given the president
we have, but nothing comes to mind and such ways seem so inadequate
anyway to address such a dire predicament.

We are now dealing with a false, fabricated national crisis related to the
southern border of the United States growing out of the totally unnecessary
government shutdown about which the president could very well do a power
grab and call a national emergency, thus, if allowed and unchecked,
paving the way to totalitarian leadership.

And so, the only thing I can think to write is that we are in the midst
of a national predicament of extreme instability completely brought upon
us by the pathologically lying, unhinged, unpredictable, volatile and
therefore extremely dangerous person who is our president and the most
powerful person in the world and enabled by cowardly Republican
legislators only concerned with their re-elections and a spineless
Senate Majority Leader.

I would like to think that “this, too, shall pass,” but all that comes
to mind is, “Th-th-th-that’s all, folks!”

We have entered Looney Tune Land or, perhaps, Existentialism’s worst
nightmare such as Sartre’s No Exit or perhaps the scariest
dystopian novel imaginable.

Where, just when you need them most, are those good old, sturdy wooden
school desks we used to crawl under during the nuclear disaster drills
in grade school?

The question for cable news show hosts:
More often than not, do you really listen when people are speaking to you
instead of just waiting for your turn to speak?

No, I’m sorry. While that is a legitimate question, it is not THE question. This is the question:
Will you please stop butting in and cutting off your guests when
they are trying to answer the question you just asked?

Now the first question is the question.

It was such a sunny, beautiful
day for the first part of January
that the man decided to go for

a bike ride. He loves his classic
ten-speed, the one the bike shop
people ogle when he takes it in

for a minor repair. He feels young
and healthy when riding and he
recalls so many, many cycling ad-

ventures through the years. As he
mounts his bike, he calls out hello
to the next door neighbor. The

neighbor shouts back, “Be careful
out there.” The question enters the
mind of the cyclist, is the neighbor

cautioning him about possible icy
patches along the way or does the
neighbor see an old man getting on

his bike or both? The cyclist calls
back, “Will do,” as he picks up speed
on the first stage of the Tour de France.

Petulant children play
while nearly a million pay
by receiving no pay
for work done every day.
“Oh, they will get back pay
when petulant children stop play,”
some say;
“But some live pay-
check to pay-
check, do pray,”
others say.
Too bad, petulant children still prey.
“Am I my brother
and sister’s keeper?” they say.
“When one suffers, we all suffer,”
someone else does say.
“Well, tell that one to fly away
and don’t spoil our play,”
the petulant children petulantly say
day after day after day
and adding insult to injury,
they gave themselves a taxpayer paid
ten thousand dollar raise in pay.

Some, so afraid of the inevitable,
run headlong into it.
Some, so afraid of the inevitable,
try to run away from it.
Some, so afraid of the inevitable,
simply sit and wait for it.
Some, so afraid of the inevitable,
busy themselves trying to ignore it.
Some, so afraid of the inevitable,
simply resign themselves to it.
Some, so afraid of the inevitable,
obsess over it.
Some, so afraid of the inevitable,
exercise and gobble supplements to delay it.
Some, so afraid of the inevitable,
sit and simply ponder it.
Some, so afraid of the inevitable,
create heaven to deny it.
Some, so afraid of the inevitable,
create hell for all others to live in it.
Maybe St. Paul was the only one
not afraid of it.
Had he really transcended his fear of it
or did he create a metaphorical battle
between immortal life and it
just to cope with it?
Maybe, it was just his figurative
way of dealing with it.
All, so afraid of the inevitable,
do, in a variety of ways,
approach it.
All, so afraid of the inevitable,
do experience it.
And they all have to pay taxes
until it.

She and the dog walked
along the bike paths near home
greeting all others.

The man read the following lines in a poem:

You read online how television, internet,
starving children in numbers greater than
three, polar bears, rain forests, light from
an off direction all desensitize the human
brain’s ability to empathize.

The man then thought about a recent incident where
he was treated very rudely by a leader in
an organization the man had once directed.

The man had been treated rudely by members
of that organization when the man was the
director.

They all did it “for the sake” of the organization.

It builds.

People dig in. They rationalize why they are right.

The man told a friend who is a member of that organization.

She became irate with him and told him that she might
never speak to him again and then rescinded that
idea for the sake of the relationship. It was close to

being really bad. Thirty-two years down the drain.

She thought the man wanted her to do something about the
rudeness he experienced at the organization. She
felt triangulated. He didn’t intend that. He just wanted
to share his hurt feelings with a friend, a friend
who had always been able to empathize in the past.

The man was hurt by members of the organization.
The man couldn’t understand the reasons for their actions.
The man couldn’t empathize with their motives in what
they believed were actions to protect the organization.

It builds.

The man’s friend was hurt by his telling her what had happened.
The conflict he had with members of the organization was
transferred to their relationship.

She couldn’t understand why he told her what happened.
She couldn’t empathize with the man.

He then, hurt by her reaction, couldn’t empathize with her.

The man then reread the lines from the poem:

You read online how television, internet,
starving children in numbers greater than
three, polar bears, rain forests, light from
an off direction all desensitize the human
brain’s ability to empathize.

Run, duck, attack, strike, hide, cower, fight.

The primordial survival skills reclaimed
in the absence of empathy.

Only they don’t work so well anymore
in helping people survive.

And then the man thought to himself, it is a miracle
we don’t all kill each other off and let the rats
have at it. They probably could handle it all better.

They are the professionals at fight or flight.

We used to know how to empathize.

I’ve been having this conversation for years,
actually as long as I can remember. “How
are you doing?” “Pretty well.” I note that
he remembers to use the appropriate adverb
rather than the adjective. He asks, “How
about you?” “Good, good, good,” I say
knowing this will drive him nuts. He frowns
but doesn’t say anything about it. “What
are you going to do today?” he asks knowing,
full well, I will go for a jog as I always do.
Without my even answering he asks, “Want
to grab a beer after your jog?” He also knows
I’m not drinking beer preferring wine, more
specifically Pinot Grigio. “We could go to
that cute, little wine bar you prefer.” Again
not waiting for an answer plus he knows
it really irritates me when he describes the
bar as a “cute, little wine bar” all the while
fluttering his fingers in a hoity-toity way.
I’m a little sensitive to think that he might
think I’m trying to one-up him on drinking
establishments. “Oh, let’s just forget it for
today,” I say. “Okay,” he says and I get
ready to go for a jog. He puts on my
jogging shoes.