SCIENTISTS

The beauty of nature is supect.
Oh yes, the splendor of flowers.
Science is concerned to deprive us of illusions.
Though why it is eager to do so is unclear.
The battles among genes, traits that secure success, gains and losses.
My God, what language these people speak
In their white coats. Charles Darwin
At least had pangs of conscience
Making public a theory that was, as he said, devilish.
And they? It was, after all, their idea:
To segregate rats in separate cages.
To segregate humans, write off as genetic loss
Some of their own species and poison them.
"The pride of the peacock is the glory of God,"
Wrote William Blake. There was a time
When disinterested beauty by its sheer superabundance
Gratified our eyes. What have they left us?
Only the accountancy of a capitalist enterprise.

-----Czeslaw Milosz, from "Second Space"

This is the best poem I've read in some time:

A BRIEF FOR THE DEFENSE
Sorrow everywhere. Slaughter everywhere. If babies
are not starving someplace, they are starving
somewhere else. With flies in their nostrils.
But we enjoy our lives because that's what God wants.
Otherwise the mornings before summer dawn would not
be made so fine. The Bengal tiger would not
be fashioned so miraculously well. The poor women
at the fountain are laughing together between
the suffering they have known and the awfulness
in their future, smiling and laughing while somebody
in the village is very sick. There is laughter
every day in the terrible streets of Calcutta,
and the women laugh in the cages of Bombay.
If we deny our happiness, resist our satisfaction,
we lessen the importance of their deprivation.
We must risk delight. We can do without pleasure,
but not delight. Not enjoyment. We must have
the stubbornness to accept our gladness in the ruthless
furnace of this world. To make injustice the only
measure of our attention is to praise the Devil.
If the locomotive of the Lord runs us down,
we should give thanks that the end had magnitude.
We must admit there will be music despite everything.
We stand at the prow again of a small ship
anchored late at night in the tiny port
looking over to the sleeping island: the waterfront
is three shuttered cafes and one naked light burning.
To hear the faint sound of oars in the silence as a rowboat
comes slowly out and then goes back is truly worth
all the years of sorrow that are to come.

-----Jack Gilbert

"The wish to be independent in everything is false pride. Even what we owe to others belongs to ourselves and is a part of our own lives, and any attempt to calculate what we have 'earned' for ourselves and what we owe to other people is certainly not Christian, and is , moreover, a futile undertaking. It's through what he himself is, plus what he receives, that a man becomes a complete entity."

"My thoughts and feelings seem to be getting more and more like those of the Old Testament, and in recent months I have been reading the Old Testament much more than the New. It is only when one knows the unutterability of the name of God that one can utter the name of Jesus Christ; it is only when one loves life and the earth so much that without them everything seems to be over that one may believe in the resurrection and the new world; it is only when God's wrath and vengeance are hanging as grim realities over the heads of one's enemies that something of what it means to love and forgive them can touch our hearts."

"I've been thinking again over what I wrote to you recently about our own fear. I think that here, under the guise of honesty, something is being passed off as 'natural' that is at bottom a symptom of sin; it is really quite analogous to talking openly about sexual matters. After all, 'truthfulness' does not mean uncovering everything that exists. God himself made clothes for men; and that means that in statu corruptionis many things in human life ought to remain covered, and that evil, even though it cannot be eradicated, ought at least to be concealed. Exposure is cynical, and although the cynic prides himself on his exceptional honesty, or claims to want truth at all costs, he misses the crucial fact that since the fall there must be reticence and secrecy."

"I often wonder who I really am--the man who goes on squirming under these ghastly experiences in wretchedness that cries to heaven, or the man who scourges himself and pretends to others (and even to himself) that he is placid, cheerful, composed, and in control of himself, and allows people to admire him for it (i.e. for playing the part--or is it not playing a part?) What does one's attitude mean, anyway? In short, I know less than ever about myself, and I'm no longer attaching any importance to it. I've had more than enough psychology, and I'm less and less inclined to analyze the state of my soul.. ..There is something more at stake than self-knowledge."

"'Falsehood' is the destruction of, and hostility to, reality as it is in God; anyone who tells the truth cynically is lying."

"It's remarkable how little I miss going to church. I wonder why."

-----Dietrich Bonhoeffer, "Letters and Papers from Prison"

In honor of today's elections, here's a little something I wrote when I was 9 years old. (All punctuation and spelling reprinted as it was originally written. This little gem garnered a grade of C.)

MY SPEECH FOR PRESIDENT
Fellow citezens of "United States" I Chris Stratton Promis that Kids do not have to go to school. And then they will be able to learn every thing with a speacile divice called a school programmer. Then I will give you a Motor-Cycle for each family and then I'm going to put any ome to "DEATH" who comits a sireous crime. I will sentence anyone who Kills Animals to Five years in prision without a reason. That is what this Country needs a Man like me.