\u201cApril is the cruelest month\u2026\u201d T.S.Eliot<\/p>\n
The above quote by Eliot was in a poem entitled \u201cWasteland\u201d. I had read these lines somewhere before and wondered why the poet thought that of April. It was written, I learned, in 1922 and at that time Eliot was a British citizen living in London. He had formerly been an American and was born there. All of which assured me that he wasn\u2019t calling April the \u2018cruelest month\u2019 because of having to file a tax return! So I pursued my inquiry and found the poem and the next lines. I then learned these lines were the opening ones of the poem. The first verse went like this\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cApril is the cruelest month,
\nbreeding Lilacs out of the dead land,
\nmixing Memory and desire,
\nstirring Dull roots with Spring rain.\u201d<\/p>\n
Thus I found no answer there as to why April was the cruelest. But I did learn that Eliot, due to this work, was considered the earliest \u201cModern\u201d poet! It reminded me of a visit June and I made to the \u201cMuseum of Modern Art\u201d in New York City. The paintings look like works done by kindergarten and elementary students. Since that time I have seen many drawings and paintings done by elementary and kindergarten students that were much better than those in the Museum of Modern Art. We learned June and I, we are not admirers of Modern Art. I have now learned from this verse I\u2019m not a lover of modern poetry! I like a simple verse like \u201cApril showers bring May flowers\u201d which since it rhymes is not \u2018modern verse\u2019.<\/p>\n
Eliot was a contemporary of C.S.Lewis. They weren\u2019t friends but did occasionally correspond. Lewis thought his literary criticism \u201csuperficial and unscholarly\u201d. Lewis as a professor of Renaissance Literature and Language at Oxford and Cambridge Universities knew much about literary criticism. He was selected as one of the authors of the Oxford History of the English Language (which he referred to as the \u201cO\u2019Hell Book). So his criticism was based on extensive knowledge of literature and his observations were well noted in the literary circles of that time. Later Lewis was to write to Eliot \u201cI hope the fact that I find myself often contradicting you gives no offense\u2026\u201d<\/p>\n
We had the great pleasure as March came to an end with visits by Sue, Tom and the their three beautiful girls, Kate, Meg and Colleen and by our son Bill. They came to view some Spring training baseball games. Sue and her gang are Yankee fans. Bill is an ardent Phillies fan. June went with them to see the Phillies play the Yankees and the Phillies won! I came across a quote about a Yankee fan in a book by G. Wilson, S.J. He said this: \u201cIn large areas of our lives we act the way we do because we have taken on the beliefs, attitudes, and behavior of people who held significance for us. Why else would anyone ever root for the Yankees?\u201d On Tuesday night we had a birthday celebration for Colleen who had turned 14 a few days before. Bill and Tom helped me to get a laptop by going with me and choosing what would satisfy my needs. We are heading north near the end of April and will be there for two months. It is why we sought to have a laptop. Bill also found time between games to plant some more sod. It was a great way to end the month.<\/p>\n
Some quotes I came across recently reminded me of my father. He was a lawyer and I did get a few years to practice with him. He was not the kind of father we think of these days. He was 43 years old when I was born and there were eleven other children. He had his hands full in making a living for us all. When I reached two years of age my oldest brother went away to a seminary. Each year or so another child would leave. The words that reminded me of him were: \u201cDetermine never to be idle. No person will ever have occasion to complain of want of time, who never loses any.\u201d This was by Thomas Jefferson and the other was: \u201c \u2026so that night we were wakened by those who would go through the dormitory and pilgrim\u2019s house ringing bells, as one monk went from cell to cell shouting \u2018Benedicamus Domino\u201d to which were expected to respond, Deo Gratis!\u201d This was in the novel \u201cThe Name of the Rose\u201d by Umberto Eco. The entire novel took place in a monastery. My father practiced the same in awakening us. He also often reminded us that \u201cIdleness is the devil\u2019s workshop\u201d I can still feel him today looking over my shoulder when I find myself playing games on the Computer for too long a time!<\/p>\n
We, June and I, went to see an \u2018updated\u2019 or \u2018modern\u2019 Hamlet. It was performed at the American Stage Theater in downtown St. Petersburg. The theater is small and unlike most is in an amphitheater style. There is no stage to look up to. We sit in rows looking down on the stage. It seats about three hundred to four hundred patrons. There is no curtain. The scenes when changed are done so in the dark but most of the time that is just to move around furniture or bring in some new things. The actors on occasion even come down the aisle between the patrons reciting lines. Hamlet is the longest of Shakespeare\u2019s plays. It is five acts. They boiled it down to two \u2013 the first act of one hour and twenty minutes and the second of forty-six minutes. The play opened with Hamlet sitting in boxer shorts and T-shirt on the side of a bed looking at a laptop. The normal black of the old Hamlet was not there. The updating certainly had begun! The next surprise was when Hamlet stood he attached his cell phone and recited the famous \u201cTo be or not to be\u201d soliloquy. It confirmed this was certainly a new version of Hamlet. Hamlet had not at that point in the play even learned of the ghost of his father wandering around the castle\u2019s walls nor that he had been murdered. The soliloquy in the old play is in the third act. Hamlet had by then walked with the ghost of his father and learned how he died. He then becomes torn with doubts as to what he should do to avenge his father\u2019s death and his mother\u2019s concupiscence. So the updating seem to take the story on a whole different trip. But never the less it was with wonder that we watched the actors, especially, Hamlet recite from memory the many lines of the play. We heard many that we recalled like, \u201cConscience doth make cowards of us all\u201d and \u201cWords without thoughts never to heaven go!\u201d<\/p>\n
In the March Jottings I wrote about the reasons one might help his fellow man. In one article it was looked out through the philosophies of materialist versus a Christian. In another it was taking the fact of our all being connected and continue to survive because of the help of others we do not know. To us they are perfect strangers and we help them as thanks for their being there. Basically he, the author, was saying we should help others because we are all related. In March in the NYTimes magazine there was an article exploring the same ideas. It was entitled \u201cGood Instincts: Why is anyone an altruist?\u201d The reason he asked this question is, that if you are convinced the theory of evolution is a fact, than such acts are contrary to that belief. Evolution by its logic of natural selection requires that any tendency to act selflessly be snuffed out in the struggle to survive and propagate. He then talks of the reasons given by such evolutionist. He takes as an example Bill Gates and his foundation which \u201c\u2026may today be the single most powerful force in the world for the relief of suffering.\u201d But what, one might ask, is in it for Bill? Evolutionary psychologists have come up with four plausible Darwinian reasons. One is something like the navel gazing theory I mentioned in March, i.e., \u201ckinship selection\u201d Second, shared altruism, i.e., you scratch my back I\u2019ll scratch yours. These two according to the atheist Richard Dawkins are the twin pillars of \u201caltruism in the Darwinian world\u201d Neither however explain the philanthropy of Bill Gates. The third reason is some kind of advantage of having a reputation for generosity and fourth is the aim of bankrupting one\u2019s rivals. Neither explains the motive of the giving of the Bill Gates\u2019 type. Evolutionary psychologists do not claim that people always have selfish ulterior motives for being generous. They maintain our genes have endowed us with altruistic instincts. But can that really be a reason. There was experiment conducted in which nineteen students were given $100 and told they could anonymously donate a portion of this money to charity. Two who donate the most were found by brain scans not to have any neural reward such as a \u2018warm glow\u2019. The last explanation is by the philosopher Nagel who says it is rooted in the \u201cconception of oneself as merely a person among others\u201d It is similar to the reason I take to avoid my own future suffering. In any event no objective reasons come from the vagaries of natural selection\u201d<\/p>\n
So now you some of the reasons why people give and help others. But no matter what they are don\u2019t you give up doing it! Until next time Pax Tecum!\t\t<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
\u201cApril is the cruelest month\u2026\u201d T.S.Eliot The above quote by Eliot was in a poem entitled \u201cWasteland\u201d. I had read these lines somewhere before and wondered why the poet thought that of April. It was written, I learned, in 1922 and at that time Eliot was a British citizen living in London. He had formerly … <\/p>\n