Just Judy musing in an idle moment….
Last night under the full moon and an overcast sky I sat in the cockpit wondering, like many parents: What kind of future have we left our children? Will our children have what they need to go through life? At the end of their lives when they look to their children, will they have lived their lives fully and without regret? Will they stretch themselves and venture where others have not? Will they question or follow the course? I wonder, have John and I done well as parents? Is society ready to receive our children? Teens grow up quickly and struggle with much that formulate whom they are and will be in the future. Is the ground they stand on firma terra for the flight they will ascend?
Mark Twain wrote a little known work of historical fiction called JOAN of ARC, which, was written after his famous Huck Finn and Tom Sawyer adventures, in a time when he no longer wrote for sustenance, but for love. He considered JOAN of ARC his best work. I have just started the book, but a quote struck me fitting, after my full moon wanderings. He wrote of the village people where Joan grew up:
"These where all good children, just of the ordinary peasant type; not bright, of course-- you would not expect that - but good hearted and companionable, obedient to their parents and the priest; and as they grew up they became properly stocked with narrownesses and prejudices got at second hand from their elders, and adopted without reserve; and without examination also-which goes without saying. Their religion was inherited, their politics the same."
As I ponder parenting, the USA primary elections and the war in the ancient lands of Persia, what has changed since the days of turmoil in 15th century France and England? Europe, was then the center of power and virulence? Most of us don't suffer from the same plague of diseases, poverty, or tyrannical corruption, but we still have woes of magnitudes too great to list and the concept of peace is more than an arm's length away. Or is it?
Have you hugged someone today?
2008Jan24
Pago Pago
American Samoa