Ripple of Hope

Robert F. Kennedy at Indianapolis, quoting Aeschylus, gets one, i.e. me, every time, coming across a short documentary on PBS called Ripple of Hope. "I had a member of my family killed." He didn't say that very often. For those of us who would learn: "Even in our sleep, pain which cannot forget falls drop by drop upon the heart until, in our own despair, against our will, comes wisdom through the awful grace of God." And he would have known that. He could quote it better than most, better, certainly, than me.

There is a form of Dallas that comes to each of us in our lives. It blindsides us. We live through it. And in doing so, living, t the experience teaches us to re-relate to our fellow beings on the planet, as if something selfish in us were diminished, a certain wry but real generosity to take its place, at least hold on to. The bright light of creation that flooded our beings in the womb swelling us with life and limb shines out again, as you could say it did from Bobby Kennedy, maybe particularly so on a cold night in Indianapolis before a crowd learning themselves some awful ominous news.

It makes you wonder, did Jesus have a troubled childhood? The flight to Egypt was probably harrowing enough for an impressionable kid. We don't get so much of that in a gospel, but maybe there's a source off-stage by which a young man learned, as he learned his wisdom, his humility, his eye for hubris, his 'happy are the meek,' his personal way of relating to people. He saw life differently, different from the habit of accumulation in its purposes. Shakespeare, who lived through greatly harrowing times, the persecution by Elizabeth of those of the 'old faith,' could also identify the habits that waste one's powers.

People get tit for tat. Boys and girls do it. Old and modern tribes do it, eye for eye, tooth for tooth. Oh, you don't like me, well, I don't like you either. He misses her vulnerability, she calls him a creep. (Jimi Hendrix renders it beautifully, 'slams the door in his drunken face,' as if quoting from Buddhist scripture, rhymed to 'disgrace.') Left behind in the escalation the children who like each other, wish to reveal themselves, want so badly to get along, sensing how beautiful that would be. If you come across your own Dallas in youth, then with years to think over what you did wrong and to be sorrowful and not vainly desirous, well, Dallas will come to you anyway, so you might as well be young when it comes, even if you wish you could enjoy life just a little bit before all that which makes you mature.

Or maybe a Dallas is one's own prodigal nature, misspent youth, lost opportunity, another version of Job. Chekov populated his stories with people going through it. Lincoln found joy in writing, enough to get him out of bed, as he went along learning from life in his own gentle way, walking toward his own bullet in the head. To express such things, as are found in 'fondly do we hope, fervently do we pray...', brought him just compensation for living in a world where things must play out in a certain way.

Somewhere you find courage and calm and peace of mind to face a crowd that feels it has nothing to lose in angry acts. A brother echoing the sentiments of his brother, distilled by time and experience and loss.