Kafka's Web: Just A Cry in the Wilderness..

A reader-former student-friend emailed the following...

I respect her views and her perspective... and I decided

to share it with you...

Hello Hello!

I liked your post about Women's Day [Yesterday's post]. I have to tell you though, I don't want a day. I would rather have a lifetime to be remembered and respected than just a day. They give us those silly pins, I'm sure you remember, from the unions. I refuse to wear them. Every year they give them to us!!! "Wear these pins to show your respect for women!" I would rather show my respect and be shown respect through actions and words rather than a pin. What a waste of money. Respect is free. The people who wear the pins are already respectful, I would know who they are without their pins.

I was just reading something you might find interesting. As I'm sure you know, this year, in the Catholic Church, is the Year of Mercy. Pope Francis has a daily meditation posted on the Vatican website, and today's was called The Forgiveness Equation. Near the end of the meditation, the Pope explains that "Forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors" is an equation. If you think about it, it's true. I always teach my students that an equal sign means that if something is done to one side, it has to be done to the other. If we expect mercy and forgiveness from God, we also have to show mercy and forgiveness to others. It's such a great thought, and seems so easy...but it's not. We all want to be forgiven, even if we pretend we don't care, but that can't happen unless we are capable of forgiving others.

Just something I thought I would share with you tonight before I head to bed.

After reading the email I imagined the day when ALL people will talk with each other and discuss ideas and come to solutions... WITHOUT RESORTING TO VIOLENCE... WITHOUT ENGAGING IN WAR...
Maybe some day... Maybe it will be possible...

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Edvard Munch's portrait of existential angst is the second most famous image in art history... They say the first is Mona Lisa...

I had Munch's painting in my classroom... Just to remind me that if I do not connect with the students, then my whole effort will be a cry in the wilderness...

A Call in the Wilderness...

Beneath a boiling sky, glowing with yellow, orange and red, burning in space and time... an androgynous-bisexual figure stands upon a bridge. Wearing a sinuous, plant-like curvy, blue coat, which appears to flow, surreally devoid of time and space and gravity, into a torrent of aqua, indigo and ultramarine behind him, a deluge of unknown and unreal nihility, he holds up two elongated, off sized, hands on either side of his hairless, skull-like head. His hairless head spotlights his fear and loneliness... His detachment from the surrounding... His "alone"ness in the vast-without-limits universe.

His eyes wide with shock, he unleashes a bloodcurdling shriek. Despite distant vestiges of normality – two figures upon the bridge, a boat on the fjord – everything is suffused with a sense of primal, overwhelming horror.
Fear of the known, in his hairless skull... Fear of the unknown around him... The reality in him and the surreal environment without him... Do create an unresolved contradiction... which challenges the existence and psyche of "his-her-her-his" BEING...
... And thus the frightful... atrocious... and alarming... Angst-cry in the Wilderness... "She-he-he-she" shout of the times... in the void... in space without limit... a bottomless abyss... a skyless heaven... which no one hears... but we know that it is here and it is real...
Because the inexplicable in us... without us... has identified the "He-she-she-he" solitude... the aloneness... without time and space... devoid of all known gravity... the attraction of the like... the repulsion of the...

I told Ross... I just did my best... and I hope it makes a difference... I am not sure that it did... I am not sure that things are better now, than they were then... But essentially each one of us can only try... and then hope for the best...

I had the Starry Night of Van Gogh too on the classroom wall... They sort of complemented each other... The stars in the vast space... and the fear of the unknown and eventually the Scream...

Yesterday I say a composite of the Starry night and the Scream... and it amused me... and here it is... both in one frame...

I poured a glass of wine and just looked at the night... It is full moon today... I will wake up at four an absorb the lights from the moon... The full moon penetrates into my home at four in the morning and I always make a point of waking up and sitting there... in the dark... with the moon... all by myself... quiet... without music... and look at the moon and remember things that I will still do... tomorrow... Maybe the next day too...

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