The World Cannot Be Good Enough for All, and Neither Can I

    Bad things have happened, are happening, and will happen. And that is just me and my family.

    Reading up on J.D. Salinger, we see a lot of pain and suffering. He went through a lot in England, France, Luxembourg, and Germany. It went from bad to worse. He survived physically, but mentally and emotionally, or spiritually, he was very much damaged. But we were the bad guys; we made it back to fight for another day. Most of the millions of troops made it home. Around 400,000 did not. Many stories of woe and sadness.

    Many of those who fought went through too much. Europe, Africa, the South Pacific, into the Philippines and Japan. 

    

    The civilians of those battle-reft lands were savaged and brutalized, and suffered so much. Maybe the Russians never healed enough; perhaps they fight into Ukraine because of those unhealed wounds from generations past. Not just the Great War, World War II, against the forces of Hitler and the Germans, but past wars, and even more recent. Like Afghanistan. They lost four or five times more than our coalition troops in less than half the years.

    The land where empires fall. Hard to change, even in the 21st century.

    Me, I did okay there. I survived, and sometimes thrived there. We were fortunate, most of us. Some were killed, maimed, and wounded. It was a war.

    But, we hold out hope for them and us. We can be okay enough, even excel, to greater heights.

    We have to overcome the challenges and setbacks.

IU Men Basketball: The Grit is Back? Nick Dorn and a Few Play Like they Care, they Can

    Wow! Or, wow. I am relieved the IU men survived at UCLA, and made it a gritty win. They were choking near the end, like their recent home win versus vaunted Purdue, but they survived, outlasted, just did enough for the victory. One injured point guard, and three others fouled out. 

    Nick Dorn might be the answer. Hello. You are a breath of fresh air, my Hoosier friend. Thank you!

    Maybe this Indiana team has enough to do it. They had Nebraska down, and Michigan State. They may have the right moxy.

    Perhaps I gutted them as gutless too soon, a few blog posts ago. Maybe they have enough talent, strength, and character to do some March Madness run?

    Who knows? They do have some pieces to do some great things. They need to be there and play as they can. Bot giving up. Yet.

    We shall see.

 Ice, Snow, and Cold Things

    It's Saturday morning; I told my best friend that I was going to write about ice and snow.

    This week brought a lot of snow, ice, and pretty cold temperatures to the region and the rest of the country. I was able to go to work three days. I stayed home two of them, plus remained in the house Sunday, not going to church or anywhere else.

    I saw snow and ice on the local roads, cul-de-sacs, highways, and free ways. I helped move some snow, shovel, and push some vehicles that were stuck in my greater neighborhood. My own car got stuck a couple times, but I was able to move it by shimmying and moving it back and forth. 

    

    Big snow, big ice. We got off our son to the airport, where he is off to bigger and (better?) adventures and climes. Another country, other cultures and tongues. Different flavors and spices, sounds and thoughts.

    Perhaps a poem...

Arctic and Antarctic

    I was not too close, but close enough to drive to Whitehorse

  That is the Arctic, I am pretty sure.

  I have looked at the maps enough.

  I have perused, and contemplated, and etched out the lines of the circle in my head, almost down into my organs and bones.

  I have looked at that far off Antarctic continent, too.

  Even read a few books.

  A few films.

  I thought of Bear Island during the week, where the extreme

  Svalbard or Spitzbergen chunks of ice and mountainous snows

  Come to the screen.

  Like Disney or some movie maker did with foxes and mice on a downtown theatre, likely the Indiana Theatre, of my childhood.

    We played in ice and snow.

    Sledding, walking home from school, crunching the ice of the local creek at Bryan Park.

    I saw the smooth, crazily slick and hardened ice and snow fields of my work place this week,

    Harkening me back to the places that I have seen and witnessed

    The snows of mountain passes in the Andes or the Sierra Nevadas, the Uintahs or Wasatch Front of Utah, the Cascades with its luminous Mount Rainer

    Or picturesque, statuesque, Mount Hood of Oregon.

    Cold, freezing waters in the latest Tom Cruz Mission Impossible

    Endless ice and snow.

    

    We walked in it, slipped and almost fell on the way back from flavorful chicken wings and cheesy fries.

    It was a walk and visit to remember.

    We can love the ice and snow,

    Almost like we can cherish the distances, cold and isolated, of friends and family.

    Like when many of us leave, and have to die.

    The ice and snow of the planets, outer rims and reaches of space.

    The utter freezing and mostly silent depths of the most vast wastes of space, on and on, far from the sun.

    Jesus welcomes us back to the warm spots, the beaches and islands and hot jungles or cool mists of warmer climates, like Florida, or other such places of the absence of snow.

    But we welcome the cold times, even death.

    Because in this way we celebrate memory, love, and life.

    All of it, cold and hot, near and far, close and distant.

    Snow, ice, and the sun.

[Sunday review, looking for a typo... Nothing much, I guess.]

 Trust in the System[s]

    In whom do we trust? What systems, beliefs, governments, people, institutions, do we trust and put our faith in? I just watched the last episodes of "The Chosen" last night with much of my family. We are snowed in, safe from the cares of much of the world, this weekend, like...

    Thousands of citizens of Iran who were killed or jailed in the last few weeks, fed up with their meager, economically savaged lives. About five thousand dead, with maybe many thousands of others detained. Iran is not in a happy way.

    Nor is Ukraine, nor Sudan, nor Russia, really. Venezuela is better off now, we think, despite all the hub bub of the overnight removal of their strong man and his woman. Maduro and Cilia Flores.

    Meanwhile, in the United States, we are struck by cold water and snow and ice, some have died from that, but sadder still, because of aggrieved feelings by many, there are two protestors killed in a week, plus quite a few detainments that are disturbing, of toddlers or small kids of five years. Senators and governors and others are opposed, against these rather draconian measures to remove illegals.

    There are many protests around the country, including locally, with the kids at our schools.

    Religiously, many of us posit faith and trust, hope and confidence in Jesus Christ. The Chosen series sums up a lot of those beliefs and hopes. Then there are our churches and organizations, the institutions of our holy practices and beliefs. How do we work and function within our societies?

    Our work places, neighborhoods, clubs and sports groups.

    Our taxes and law enforcement and justice systems, the ways that we pay for education, how we work, what we wish to work towards... Building up wealth and retirement savings. Planning, executing our life plans.

    How do we build it? In what do we put our efforts and hopes?

    Are we philanthropic? What do we give to charities and others? Adultery commandments help us stay married, this is true for most, yes? The institution of fidelity, of not lying, not taking others' lives or property.

    In who and what do we trust? How do we maintain our goals and standards? Can we trust ourselves? Can I trust my family? My neighbors? The local police and medical personnel? The firefighters?

    The military, the local school boards, administrators and teachers? Civilian drivers and other people in traffic? Can we trust systems to keep our planet in order? Environmentally? Orderly, clean?

    Can we be trusted to do the right things, and look out for ourselves now and into the future?

    Discuss.

Injuries Big and Small, External and Internal

    I jammed my ring finger on my left hand Monday morning, playing basketball. Many of us played on the MLK holiday. It was an unnecessary injury, but it happened. (How many injuries are necessary?). I played with the pain for a game and a half, but then I sat out the rest. I cooled off, got some ice. The middle knuckle continued to swell, thus my left hand was not functional to dribble, pass, or shoot, or even rebound, likely. I sat out. A buddy recommended that I pull it, fix it, and play on, but I knew this injury would only get worse, that I could make it a more painful problem, or that it could remain a longer term injury if I pushed it that morning. I put ice on it to reduce the swelling. 

    Yesterday, Friday, four days later, my ring finger turned a sickly yellow, the whole length of it-- reminding me of how the skin of corpses look, either in a coffin or being prepared for burial. I have seen more dead people in the caskets, but I also helped dress Jesus Amezquita over twenty years ago, up close and personal. Dead, jaundiced looking skin. The whole finger, not just the offending knuckle. My wedding ring would not fit when it was most swollen two and three days later; the same ring did not fit well on my right hand, either. The right ring hand ring finger is thicker. Probably because of use.

    I have used my left hand with the wounded finger all week. A few times I think I have re-injured or re-aggravated it a little, or made it slower to heal. I drive, I type, I open doors, mess with clothing and laundry. I pick up some things. Opening doors or handles can hurt my finger.

    This is a relatively small injury, but it has bothered me externally, but a bit on the inside as well. As I said before: this jammed finger happened for an unnecessary reason. My own teammate caused it, or at least made the ball do something unplanned that jammed my finger. He was playing a bit reckless or selfish, in my opinion. A few times this week I wanted to play against him, and maybe hurt him. Not good. I should not hold him responsible for this finger issue.

    Stinking thinking, I admitted at dinner last night. I realized this on my own later. I should not blame him, and less, seek a type of vindictive revenge. How would that help? Settling the score? Not the best reaction, plan, or impulse. He did not mean to hurt me. He plays with a little too much grit, arguably.

    Who hurts us? How are we wounded? We see and feel death and insult, injury and pain from many sources. Some offenses are worse than others. Some things last longer, both physically and emotionally. It happen spiritually too. We can be wounded, sometimes long-term, all kinds of ways. How do we heal?

    J.D. Salinger survived World War II, but it wounded him for life. He survived many harrowing, deadly moments and events that thousands did not. His life after that and his art, characters, and the analysis of him, the most reclusive best-selling author, stays with us and our psyches. Adolph and his forces hurt him, and us, and the psychological, the internal mysteries and injuries remain, bopping around our own consciousnesses. 

    Salinger had to do some awful, ghastly things. He even saw and experienced more terrible, heart-wrenching events, making it back to his home country, after seeing a lot of the worst of humanity, but somehow maintaining his heart and soul intact. We think. He lived a long life.  Long live the spooked recluse who killed and fought for his country! So we would not have to do and see all that nastiness and trauma, at least most of us would never be exposed to it. God bless those troops who live and do the hardest things. Some suffer profound and at times irreversible injuries through sacrifice so that the rest of us do not have to. Hard, but true. We are grateful for those that take it for the rest of us.

    Ok, I said what I meant to. Thanks for those dialogues, Holden Caulfield, Sergeant Salinger, the authors and researchers who have dug deep into the man and the legend, the misfit and the secret, private, artist. Haunted and hounded by history. Trying to save the kids from the big cliff by the rye fields.  That is what Holden wanted to do. Preserve innocence. Keep us pure. He wished to protect us for the lives lived, the damages witnessed, absorbed, and interpreted, and how we go on to the next wounds whether visible or lying deep within our hearts and minds. Our internal organs and brains withstand many injuries, we might say.

    Blog it. OKAY, an addendum. Next day, Sunday, after my Saturday post.

    Yesterday another person was killed in Minneapolis by government officials. This is two people in one week, dead, which is distressing to many, including people that I care about and I am close to. On many levels I am concerned for the proper execution or implementation of law enforcement and the rule of law. Due justice and peace need to be foremost in our minds in this and all times.

    We are wounded and scars remain from injustice and tragedy.

    How do we heal? How do we grow from the wounds and injuries that we sustain?

Poem from 2012: Los colores

 Poem, Los Colores

   Los colores de mi vida son muchos,

    Pero no brillan tanto sin ti.

    Los colores de mi sangre son muchos,

    Y los llevas en tu ser por tu cien y los lomos.

    Yo te llevo en mi mente coloreada,

    En mis recuerdos dulces y tiernos,

    Tu siempre luces como angel de anhelo,

    Compasion, tolerancia, hogarena de estabilidad.

    Y yo te amo, con todos tus colores.

    Y el mejor-- eres el color que vives:

    Amor.

    English translation from 2026.

    The colors from my life are many,

    But they do not shine so much without you.

    The colors of my blood are many,

    You wear them in your being on your temple brow and the loins.

    I hold you in my mind in all colors, 

    In my memories sweet and tender,

    You always sparkle as an angel of yearning,

    Compassion, tolerance, homemaker of stability.

    I love you, in all your colors.

    And the best thing-- you are the color that you live:

    Love.

    (Written from many thousands away, back in the 2012.)

    

    

Indiana Football Champs! Cinderella Amazing Season...

    Wow. It went perfect, getting past the mid-season struggles of Iowa, and Penn State, which were close. Oregon was tense, too. Then the close win versus Ohio State. Injuries were mostly avoided. Mendoza won the Heisman. Then the Hoosiers pounded Alabama, and Oregon, much bigger than the first game.

    The final, last night, was a formidable foe in the Miami Hurricanes. It was tense. The second half the Hurricanes kept coming, and IU stayed ahead, with some clutch plays and a blocked punt in the end zone, going up ten again. Integers of 10 most of the game for Indiana's comfort, then holding on six till the end. Jamari Sharpe picked up the game sealing throw with less than a minute to go.

    All of the Hoosiers contributed. Omar Cooper did his fine things. Elijah Sarrat was not stellar, but Charlie Becker came in huge, clutch.  Nowakowski, the big tight end, ran for a touch down and made big plays.

       The defense played well enough. Kamara on special teams added the vital second half score when IU's offense was stalling. Black showed power. Hemby finally got a few good runs. Mendoza ran his remarkable touch down run.

    We are now tied all time for Yale of 1894. Who they play? Sisters of the Poor, for sure.

    Remarkable. Clutch. Gritty. Well honed, well executed. Few mistakes.

    Cignetti brought in a dynamo, with players and coaches and plans, the mental mind set to win.

    It happened. Last night.

    16-0. Perfect for the ages.