Date: Fri, 21 Sep 2001 19:51:56 -0100
Subject: Re: Mystify me!



Julie,

By "finally", I meant a response to catastrophe as we face the unknown, but
I agree with your statement.  And other words you wrote were eloquent, as
has
been noted by others..

As for the children -

In a phone call, last Sunday, my daughter said that many years ago our
family, including her twin brother had seen the movie: "On the Beach", a
story of nuclear  destruction of the Earth.. She could not have been more
than 10 years old.  She said she was really upset, and asked me, as we were
driving home, if such a thing could actually happen.  I said "probably not".
Sunday, she said that was a "truthful answer", but not the answer she
wanted.

I can't even remember the details of the movie she told me about, but it
wasn't a movie that young children should be allowed to see.

Best wishes,
Hugh




> > A saying of names, religious, philosophic, scientific; a performance of
> > rituals:
> > birth, bonding, death, and WAR.
> >
> > HB
>
> Maybe not finally.  My "favorite" Lyotardian concept is that of pagan
> narrative--someone tells a story, someone else tells a story about that
story,
> or their own story about the same subject, and so on and on and on.  May I
add
> my own voice--as a Christian, a stay-at-home mother, an American.  May my
> narrative spark you to others.
>
> I know no one in the World Trade Centers.  Indeed, I felt detached from
the
> whole thing.  Until that evening when I put my sweet baby boy to bed, and
> realized how many children went to bed without Mommy or Daddy.  How many
would
> wake up without them.  Then I grieved.
>
> And again the next night when I realized that somewhere on the planes that
> crashed may well have been someone clutching a baby and praying that
his/her
> little boy would feel no pain when he died.
>
> In the sea of voices, there is a wordless cry from the children.
>
> I do not view freedom and democracy as theme-park toys with a yellow
smiley face
> balloon flying over all, pretty and perfect.  They are concepts wet with
the
> blood of boys--my son?  my brother? my husband?--who believe freedom and
> democracy must be protected.  They are stained with the tears of mothers
and
> wives whose hearts broke when the boys never came home.  The American flag
> displayed across the US, the anthem in St. Paul's and Buckingham palace,
is not
> a symbol of "shiny happy people" who will not open their eyes or their
hearts,
> but people who have embraced tragedy and the reality of the world and
choosen to
> be Sisyphus. Heroic?  No.  Just determined.
>
> Perhaps I am unscholarly and hopelessly old-fashioned.  But when
philosophy and
> politics becomes numb to mothers and children and families, then what good
does
> it do anyone?
>
> I am struck by Hugh's comments:  a saying of names, a performance of
rituals.
> Indeed.  May our rituals and sayings and grief not echo into silence.  May
> Sisyphus overcome.