Everything Worth Saving
By Clay Hipp
Solnit’s quiet challenge, a reason to begin
The Gleaners, Jean-François Millet, 1857
I have no interest whatsoever in being an "influencer." In fact, I think it is becoming a dirty word — one created by our market-based economy and, yes, our society.
It is rooted in inflated egos that seek favor not by improving the lives of those around them, but by gaining personal benefits at others' expense.
Look around you as you "consume" the news. The word pops up everywhere. We are so insecure about almost everything that we are willing to take advice from anyone with even an ounce of fame or fortune.
The problem? We are giving up independent thinking.
We want simple answers to difficult questions — and in the process, we seem perfectly content to be manipulated. The result? We become a part of the machine. And the machine cares nothing about our individual wellbeing; it cares only about conformity, so that we can be led by the collective nose ring. Wisdom, in this world, is merely conventional — accepting things as they are, because radical change is hard.
The single most impactful "influencer" of our modern age was Milton Friedman, of the famous Chicago School of economics. He was, in essence, a deeply fundamental thinker — simple in the most dangerous sense of the word. He announced what he considered an essential rule of economics:
"The sole social responsibility of business is to increase its profits while engaging in open and free competition, without deception or fraud."
He argued that corporate executives are agents of shareholders, and that their duty is to maximize shareholder value — not to pursue social goals. He published this in the New York Times in 1970, and found a very receptive market for his idea. It simplified everything: individuals and businesses need not be distracted by moral considerations in their decision-making. It appealed to the American ideal of individualism. It has been the prevailing gospel ever since. We bought it because it is easier to accept than to contemplate another way — even as we know, somewhere in our bones, that it is the root cause of many of our deepest problems.
If we are going to create a new, kinder world, we must first learn to visualize what it might look like — to actually care about one another. For me, one major first step is to stop watching, or to give up altogether on, the everyday news as handed down by our major media outlets. They are, in the end, corporate influencers who must make money to survive. That means attracting and keeping audiences — which means telling us only what they think we want to hear, whether good or bad, rather than offering the balanced, honest content our Constitution is supposedly protecting.
I have a suggestion. I knew the name, but until recently had not read her work. Please consider picking up The Beginning Comes After the End, by Rebecca Solnit. One reviewer puts it this way:
"The book shines a light on the vibrant world often hidden within our own seemingly gloomier one — a world that has embraced ideas of interconnection, ecological care, and political equality. It's not a naïve book — Solnit is keenly aware of the challenges we're all facing — but it provides a stabilizing counterweight to the feeling that the world, of late, has spun dangerously off-kilter."
Watch also the interview Solnit gave with David Marchese in the New York Times, in which she clearly and accessibly explains the title and its message. He asks a question that seems written for exactly this moment:
"When people are reading the news and it's making them feel as if they're barreling into a grim dystopian future, what additional context should they have that would help them complete the picture and show them that there are deeper currents of positive change happening?"
Does that not sound like exactly what we need — and precisely how many of us are feeling right now?
In that same interview, Solnit offers a thought I haven't been able to shake:
"One of the great weaknesses of our era is that we get lone superhero movies that suggest that our big problems are solved by muscly guys in spandex, when actually the world mostly gets changed through collective effort."
The counter to what ails us, she argues, has always been civil society — not a single savior, not an Übermensch, but the slow, patient work of people caring for one another. She invokes Thich Nhat Hanh, who said before he died that "the next Buddha will be the Sangha" — the community of practitioners. Maybe changing the world looks more like caregiving than warfare. Too many of us still expect it to look like war.
It has turned my mind around. Perhaps it will do the same for you. Perhaps we can begin to escape a world that is wholly political — all the way down to the ugly bottom. The great, reasonable middle — the people who represent good sense and genuine caring — just might become the true source of wisdom, as it always has been. But that middle must live it, speak it aloud, and use the power of the ballot.
"Everything we can save is worth saving. Everything we can do is worth doing. We've already lost a lot, but we don't have to lose everything. We don't have to surrender."
Let us start today to seek that new beginning — the one waiting out there, hidden behind the dangerous belief that this is the end. There is already too much pie-in-the-sky, revolutionary talk being tossed around. Solnit is not an out-of-touch, egoistic influencer. She is a true thinker who has spent years working on these problems, and who speaks directly to who we are and who we might still become.
Want a ray of light? Read Solnit. Watch the interview. Then go do something — together.
How to Live—and Why We Write
By Clay Hipp
Writing is excavation: the work of going deeper
Philosopher in Meditation, Rembrandt—1632
Awaking, as usual, around five, I began to ponder some ideas for the future content of my budding journal.
I had been rather stuck for several weeks, moving between creative pieces and commentary on several topics. My longstanding love of music seemed to hover over every piece, with song lyrics hankering to insinuate themselves at odd moments. I realized that my other love — literature — was being given short shrift.
I sat with that thought for a while, and then started asking harder questions…
The day before, I had posted a list of books, videos, and music I was recommending for the upcoming summer. Along with my choices, I had written short reasons for their inclusion, and it seemed only proper to speak of their qualities. Looking back, I can see that these were, in fact, little critical reviews. I suppose that provided the inspiration for taking a critical look at my own work.
The biggest revelation was this: I was lacking direction.
For six months — during which we posted three times a week — we were always faced with tiny deadlines. Each post was, in fact, stand-alone. It was not a great burden, but I did wonder how it could be lightened.
As I sat in the dark of my "blue morning," pondering, I was reminded of a lovely e-mail from the day before praising the "literature" post as "that was a good one." My next thought was: How can I make my own work more worthy?
The answer that appeared:
To create a stream that follows a theme.
Then, of course — what might that theme be? I cannot say that I received a clear answer, or at least one I became committed to, but a seed was sown.
The question implied that a good writer must, as they say, "follow what provides the most inspiration" — in other words, what gives your thinking momentum. Rather than reveal my tentative answer, I shall attempt to pursue it and let the reader decide.
I will also ask that you remember this day, and give me a bit of time to develop my stream and theme. Only later will I likely discover whether the new quest is achieving any success — but I believe I will somehow know the answer, if and when.
One of my motivating thoughts has been Jens Kruger's Beautiful Nothing — an instrumental composition attempting to convey a concept I have come to believe in: a mysterious "thing" with no true form, but with much substance. Someday I will attempt to "translate" it for you. For now, it is a state of mind I would very much like to achieve. It may just be the secret of life.
(For your enlightenment: the little piece is very gentle, and at one point — about two-thirds of the way through — it stops, pauses for a few seconds, and resumes. I have interpreted that pause as the beautiful nothing moment.)
One of the most influential books I have read lately is How to Live by Sarah Bakewell — about the famous sixteenth-century Frenchman, Montaigne, who essentially invented the essay as a form of literature. Bakewell introduces us by posing twenty questions she would have asked him, then answers them as she believes he might have. His writing was a deep observation of his own life: looking, describing, and analyzing critically what he observed.
(Montaigne was, in a very real sense, ahead of his time. Four centuries later, a branch of philosophy called Phenomenology arose — similar in spirit to his writing — and eventually gave rise to existentialism.)
I have been told that my powers of observation are keen, but since reading Bakewell, I have tried hard to hone them to an even finer level. The idea of the title is "how to live" — not how one should live. That distinction matters.
The quest of my writing life, so far, is to let my work inform my better judgment: a deeper attention to the world around me. Getting the journal off the ground was a grand achievement, but after the newness wore off, the excavation began. Writing and recording three times a week took me deeper place inside of myself. That’s when I began to ask: Is this going anywhere? Am I going anywhere?
From these questions I feel the emergence of a theme, and perhaps a better methodology. My deepest wish for myself and you, dear reader, is that we foster a deeper appreciation for the humanities as a true form of knowledge creation.
These are the moments that I love most about writing. When the written word acts like a long conversation with a good friend telling you a hard truth about yourself: It’s deep excavation. Each layer I remove, each article I post, asks me to go deeper. Most of the time I don’t know what I am looking for but I keep digging, because I think, the digging itself is the point.
The stream I am looking for, the theme I am beginning to trust — these feel like an unraveling, which is, I think, exactly as it should be.
The poet and philosopher John O’Donohue says it best:
“I would love to live like a river flows, carried by the surprise of its own unfolding.”
Wish me luck. 😊
When My Writing Life Was Born
By Clay Hipp
Leaving the classroom, Entering a sentence
The Writing Desk, Edouard Viullard, 1892
As I was leaving teaching and wondering what was next, I asked myself what else I could “do.”
I play golf, and used to play the guitar, and grew pretty good heirloom tomatoes, and once cultivated a vineyard, and read a lot.
Did those constitute the makings of a proper “retirement”?
Perhaps that is enough for one person to DO, but does it provide anything of use to others?
Then, I thought, that is a lot of stuff—any chance of combining any of it for a meaningful retirement?
Let me think.
What, if anything, have I done but stand in front of a group of students and try to further my worth as a faculty member by writing, presenting, and publishing about an esoteric subject called “the Legal Environment of Business”? The classes were gone and who, but close colleagues, want to hear your most recent musings on “antitrust,” for instance? If I had stayed in practice, there might have been a chance of going to the Supreme Court to “change the very law itself,” but as it was there were only juries for an audience—and another next week.
Quite promising… and eminently exciting.
A dead-end road, a box canyon, a very wide gulf… a comfortable rocking chair?
In the end, having a bit of luck with publishing, it seemed that passing through editorial hell must mean something about my writing ability. My main concern was that there was very little creativity involved, only grammar and coherence and a little persuasive ability in professional papers. Could I really write for a literate audience?
I consulted a few true writers who had written “how-to” books. Some helpful hints, too much “showing” and “examples,” and much of it seemed tied to personal material and traits.
One particularly pointed piece of advice for “beginners” seemed to be “write what you know.” That was appealing and made practical sense. So I began to think about things that I knew from experience. My loving partner (and future “editor”) had encouraged me to share my life story with my kids and future grandkids. Finding no better place to start, I started from the beginning—my childhood. Much of what I was writing at the start (I now know) was extremely narrative, facts upon facts.
As I proceeded, my “story” seemed to be getting smoother, less formal. I began, if nothing else, to feel that it was becoming easier to make the prose “flow.” My thoughts were translating into words and, at the same time, the thinking was happening with less effort. So, I wrote regularly, and the pages began to accumulate. Better yet, I realized that there were stories to tell; small towns have lots of characters.
I realized that I was starting to actually have fun!
Maybe the best part of it all was that in writing about what I know, I was finding out what I did not know, and that I was remembering things that I had forgotten. I know enough from other sources that what I was doing was bringing old memories back to life, retrieving them from lost, unused banks. What a revelation to know that I was somehow bringing things long gone “back to life.”
Recently, it occurred to me that I had not shared much of this document with my boys. The reason, perhaps, was that some of what I had written seemed a bit too personal and revealing. Now, I think that my middle-aged sons can be trusted to receive it for what it is. They certainly know by now that I am not perfect. I make plenty of mistakes and second-guess myself just like everyone else, and by sharing it, I am demonstrating trust and just being human.
In addition, when I read it now, it does not seem too bad!
Lesson to self and to any budding writers: there are many fine things about writing that may not be obvious until one does it. Another: you might just rekindle reasons to return to reading good literature. The most important? You will never know good writing until you read the best. It will inspire and ignite the writer you are capable of becoming.
Just some further incentive.
I had never really considered writing works of fiction. I am, in my oral life, considered to be a good storyteller. That comes, I think, from my years as a teacher and the need to be spontaneous on my feet, and having the need for providing context for in-class pronouncements. I also come from the rural South, with front porch talk and much oral tradition. The thought of “making up” stories seemed unnatural and hard work.
Just to let you know, that can change.
It happened this way for me. For twenty or so years, I was absolutely smitten with a story song written by one of my favorites, John Gorka. I liked it, and the concept behind it, so much that I could not get it out of my mind—I wanted desperately to know where it came from, the inspiration behind it. Ultimately, I decided I would just have to “make it up.”
So, I did.
I pretended that it was from an actual story. I gave it a fictional context and pretended there was an investigative reporter who got wind of a controversial news article and proceeded to follow the story for his readers (you know the type; the story must be of significant human interest).
Well, by the time I wrote it, I had fantasized for years, and it just came rolling out, effortlessly—the easiest writing one could hope for. I had fun, and when it was finished, I needed to share it. Too shy and afraid of its reception, I just put it aside. Finally, I sent it to the person who had written the song, called his agent and asked if the writer might talk with me and, lo and behold, he liked it and we talked over the phone.
That should have been enough for this novice, but “noooo”!
One of the characters refused to go away. She had more story to tell; she was adamant! So, I set about satisfying her thirst to live. I told it, but lo and behold, one of the new characters demanded equal time for HIS story.
Bottom line?
Unbeknownst to me, it had become a novel.
Do not get excited. I got the big head, submitted it to a small, independent publisher, who responded:
“This is to acknowledge receipt of your manuscript. We will review it and let you know within six months of our interest. If you have not heard within that time, assume that it will not meet our needs.”
I heard no more. It has lain in limbo ever since. I decided that I would never let an editor ruin my year again.
I have read too many stories since then about authors who have received many, many such results.
Not for me.
Thank goodness I am not a professional. I will stick to my leisure.
Perhaps, I will choose to serialize the book for you, noble reader, and take a chance with the reviews.
Moral of the story?
Sometimes it takes decades to become qualified for the work that actually matters.
An Underappreciated Treasure
A plea for locals, wanderers, and the weary-hearted to discover the music waiting just up the road
By Clay Hipp
Watson Stage, Merlefest, Wilkesboro Community College, North Carolina
Since I arrived in North Carolina, I have been attending a marvelous musical event called MerleFest.
It happens during the last weekend in April and began in the spring of 1988. It began very small as a celebration of Doc Watson’s son Merle, who died in a tractor accident, on the flatbed of a trailer. It was meant to be a one-year thing, but the musicians who played along with Doc’s neighbors would not let it die, and it has been an annual event ever since. It is now held on the campus of the community college, with thirteen venues spread over the campus for a four-day weekend.
I first attended in 1994 and seldom miss it. Here is my concern. My home in Winston-Salem is less than an hour away. Ever since I fell for it, I have urged, preached, to locals that they must attend.
For a variety of reasons, very few have responded positively to my plea:
Bluegrass? Ugh.
Wilkesboro? Really?
Are there crowds?
What, no alcohol? Etc., etc., ad infinitum.
Too bad.
The very first year I went, I sat with people from Ireland, Seattle, Hudson’s Bay, Canada. They were flabbergasted to learn that so few locals attended.
I was moved to try once more with a more general (and, I hope, accepting) audience.
Here is my pitch:
Last Saturday afternoon, I sat with about a thousand animated people and, over three hours, listened to, in turn:
— a young Irish duo, DUG, (guitar and banjo) who started out “busking” in front of the Burger King in Dublin. About thirty, they write most of their stuff and play Irish traditional as well. To add to their sound, one wears a tambourine around an ankle and the other drums with one foot. Engaging, and funny, and self-effacing. It felt as if we had been transported to a pub.
— a Norwegian ensemble of seven members named Hayde Bluegrass Orchestra, featuring all the usual instruments, a fine female lead, and very fine four-part harmony and mostly original songs. You can catch them on YouTube and “U” should.
— a Swiss brother act called the Kruger Brothers, who immigrated after playing MerleFest in 1997. They now live in Wilkesboro and tour worldwide. Jens plays the finest banjo you will ever hear and Uwe is one of the hottest guitar pickers around (no one else could keep up with Jens). Jens also writes long classical pieces for banjo and string quartet.
Then throw in a cover of a Bob Marley album by a San Francisco band, The Waybacks (and friends), on a hillside stage that feels like a smaller version of Woodstock, with thousands gathered at the open-air stage and on the steep slopes.
Finally, an Americana/roots band named Railroad Earth that hails from New Jersey and features an array of bluegrass instruments, percussion, and full keyboard, and call it a musical afternoon to remember (whether you come from across the world or fifty miles away).
Also one would be remiss to mention Sam Bush (one of the great bluegrass heroes), who played a set later that night as he has every year since MerleFest began (along with several others). He is certainly one of the “treasures” to be discovered and admired.
Who could turn down such a wide diversity in styles to celebrate a Carolina spring?
Do not be that person! Leave your weary selves behind.
Time is all we have—let’s spend it more wisely.
An Anecdote:
I once met a lovely woman from the Mendocino coast who worked in a tasting room of a winery and hosted a bluegrass show on a remote public radio station. When she heard where I was from she asked, “Do you know about MerleFest? I have always wanted to go.” We made tentative plans for her to come and stay with us the next spring. She called a month or so before and, with regret, revealed that she was being treated for cancer and could not come. We agreed to try the next year or the next, but it never happened. One of those great disappointments of life.
Do not put off your dreams.
Great music hath charms. Start your own tradition at MerleFest in the spring.
You will never know until you try it.
A small listening companion for the essay above:
Merlefest Favorites 2026. Click image below to open the full playlist on YouTube.
For Our Better Angels
Books, music, stories, and the art that helps us remember who we are
By Clay Hipp
Salem Cove, Maurice Prendergast, American Painter, 1858 - 1924
I have to say that lately I have been very engaged in my own concerns about us and our country. It might have been therapeutic for a while, but it needs to stop. We need to refocus on each other and our relationships, and on supporting and raising our collective spirits.
In that context, I would like to make a few suggestions about turning to some things that represent our better angels: some reading, music and art, and communing.
First, I have found great solace in reading some very fine literary fiction that I recommend now and for the summer.
I do not wish to demean anyone’s preferences, but these are books that have been particularly engaging and to which I have found a need to return are those which offer style, theme, and psychological complexity. Two recent examples are extremely different in time and place:
-- The Oceans and the Stars: A Sea Story, A War Story, A Love Story by Mark Helprin. The title tells it all. It is contemporary and takes the reader somewhere they might not want to go—the Middle East—and it is about a war. It is a very fine glimpse into the essential nature of global conflict. However, the essential story is about the character of a single man, a naval officer who captains a very unique vessel and must assemble his crew on very short notice in order to embark on a very uncertain engagement. The reader will learn about what military leadership (or any kind) should be—both realistic and inspirational. Each of the three stories is fully developed. The reader will learn much of value from all three. Epic.
-- Riders of the Purple Sage, by Zane Grey. From the early part of the twentieth century, a book that some might refer to as just a “Western.” I have known the title for a long time, but I was never particularly drawn to the genre. Sure, I saw movies about Hopalong Cassidy and Roy Rogers, but they were mostly about chase scenes and silly shooting while riding a horse. Great Saturday entertainment at the Strand theater but nothing to take home to Mom.
Somehow, I was reminded of the adventurous title and the famous author and wondered why, avid reader that I was, that I had never checked it out at the library. Perhaps my kind librarian Miss Reba Scott had warned me away. Or perhaps, the fates were saving it until now. Glad that they did. Turns out that Zane Grey was a prolific and very talented prose artist (and on a variety of subjects).
Read this and laugh and cry and wonder at the stories from the wild west (Arizona/Utah). There is of course conflict over land rights, but much more including religious conflict (Mormon and Gentile). Perhaps even more importantly, very fine lessons in character and human psychology. Perhaps the greatest joy comes from Grey’s descriptive portrayal of the vast geography. A revelation.
Second, some favorite music.
-- Appalachian Concerto, the Kruger Brothers. If you are in a Classical, but contemporary, mood, this is just the ticket. One of the brothers, Jens, is one of the finest banjo players going and an accomplished composer. Though he and his brother … (a very good guitar player though not quite the virtuoso as Jens) were invited to Merlefest thirty years ago for their bluegrass skills. Wait a minute you say. Where does the Concerto come from, a cover? No, his very own composition and written for bluegrass trio and a string quartet. We attended the premiere at MerleFest fifteen years ago in front of 1000 people and there was a standing ovation before the last movement started. They have recorded several more of his long pieces since. This concerto will make you cry; it represents our mountains so well.
-- Unentitled, John Gorka. The latest in a long string of albums written and performed by one of the best singer/songwriters for the last forty years. Here, he showcases a very reflective group of songs that demonstrate both his maturity and the times we are living in—so very “listenable.” Treat yourself to someone I would declare to be songwriting “royalty.”
-- Father’s Son, Pierce Pettis. Also a sterling writer/performer for four decades. He can be funny, poignant, a storyteller “par excellence,” who spins beautiful love songs as well. Here he reflects on his long life, his days and nights on the road, and relationships of all kinds. His voice has deepened over time to an almost hoarse, but deeply resonant, baritone. Much like Gorka his live performances are “heart to heart.” They each engage their audiences with a sense of gratitude and thanks for making their chosen lives possible. I cannot help but say “folks my Mama didn’t raise no fool and in terms of vocal music, it don’t get no better than this—regardless of the genre.” Hope it speaks to you.
Some movie recommendations…
I am taking a big chance here. I am decidedly not a movie buff, but I do follow friendly advice (especially from those who know my shortcoming) when someone says, “you really should watch this one.”
I am asking you to consider this in that spirit. It will not hurt my feelings if your reaction is “are you kidding me?!” I understand informed biases. Life is too short.
--Star Trek, the Next Generation, Gene Roddenberry. Captain Jean Luc Picard (played by the distinguished Shakespearean actor Patrick Stewart) is the reincarnation of Captain James Kirk of the earlier version of Star Trek from the 1960’s. While Kirk was more of a swaggering “cowboy,” Picard is an erudite gentleman and also a caring human being with an extremely difficult job. He captains a huge spaceship called the Enterprise whose mission is to find and explore new worlds and “to boldly go where no one has gone before.”
The ship resembles a small city populated by crew and families to perform all the tasks needed to carry out daily life. The heart of the story involves the officers of the command bridge. They are a diverse group of men and women (and an android) whose job is navigation and interaction with populations they encounter. They must work together, follow the captain’s lead, and perform many complex tasks. But the fascinating part is that they are also human beings with all our complicated relational issues.
The story is about our “future history.” We seem to have evolved from our previous warring selves and must follow a “prime directive” in order to avoid interfering in the cultures they encounter. The series lasted eight seasons with the main cast, so we get to know them and their virtues and faults. One who follows it will learn much about ourselves. (Careful, you might get hooked and that would not be a bad thing.)
--Anne of Green Gables, Lucy Maud Montgomery. A film version from 1985. Stunning photography, a sterling cast, and a compelling story of Anne Shirley, a spirited, imaginative orphan mistakenly sent to live with siblings Matthew and Marilla Cuthbert who live and farm on Prince Edward Island. Watch it once and you will almost certainly watch it again. Top notch, not to be missed (the book came out in 1907). You can stream it from this site. Definitely worth the price of admission: https://www.gazebotv.com/products/anne-of-green-gables-complete-collection
--Prime Suspect was a game-changer for the 1990s. Brave, hard-edged, and unrelenting—and I’m talking about Jane Tennison just as much as the show. It was the first TV police investigation I actually believed in—the first that got its hands really dirty. As one of the first senior women, up against the brutal institutional sexism of the contemporary police force, Jane Tennison could easily have come over as too PC to be true, but right from the start she was compellingly flawed as well as admirably ambitious and as kick-ass as they come. Played by one of Britain’s finest actresses, Helen Mirren.
Finally, it would be terribly wrong if I did not highly recommend that you watch a TV classic.
--Jacques and Julia, Cooking at Home. A celebrated, Emmy Award-winning PBS series featuring legendary chefs Julia Child and Jacques Pépin cooking together in a relaxed, unscripted setting. The 22-episode show is praised for its warmth, genuine friendship, and expert culinary techniques, emphasizing classical French techniques for home cooks.
That is the description, but it is so much more. Their interchanges reveal so much more. These are two mature people who demonstrate love and respect for each other while doing it with humor and a bit of feisty (mostly Julia), competitive spirit. Learn to cook but also how to live. They ended each show by looking at the camera and saying: “Bon appétit!” by Julia Child, followed by “And happy cooking!” by Jacques Pépin. Please give it a viewing—as good as it gets.
I realize that offering a list like this is terribly presumptuous. Maybe all I really mean to say is this: when the world feels too loud, I need to remember what is still good.
A fine book. A true song. A story with heart. A table where people laugh, cook, argue a little, and love each other anyway. That is the kind of art, and the kind of communing, I crave right now.
I might just take my own advice and work my way through these again.
I wish for you an inspiring Sunday morning….
Fundamental Re-visted
What we believe without question—and what it costs us
By Clay Hipp
Wanderer Above A Sea of Fog, Caspar David Friedrich, 1818
I am guessing by now that you have gotten a sense of how much I care for words, choosing them as well as possible with a strong sense of precision.
The more I write, I tend to develop a special relationship with particular words. I find that I gravitate towards those that have complex meanings, that are fraught with subtlety, and sometimes even apparent contradictions.
For instance, some suggested synonyms for the title word: basic, essential, primary, elemental, rudimentary, underlying, cardinal, and key.
Is that helpful?
As we shall see, the word is not exactly “exact,” and all those choices are regularly used instead. At first, my feelings about it are positive—but is there a dark side?
As I have “matured,” certain words have taken on more and more importance, both in my writing but also in the much more expansive world of my thinking about a range of what I would call “life issues.”
Fundamental belief is one such example—not in any way meant to be taken as a statement about theology. I have a few friends with whom I have substantial issues with respect to our personal faiths. My approach has continued to evolve from my childhood, growing up in a traditional small town in which everyone was some flavor of Protestant Christianity (there was one Jewish family and one Catholic—they each had to drive 15 miles or so to a place of worship).
I have wandered around many variations on the theme. My current strong, unwavering philosophy is that everyone should be free to choose whatever path to “salvation” they find worthy.
But as you probably know, if you have wrestled with it at all, some very fine folks take the position that their own faith leads to “fundamental” truth, which seems to compel a proactive defense of these beliefs against modernism—and a need to persuade others to adopt it for themselves.
In other words, I respect their freedom to choose—but not their unwillingness to extend the same to others.
The part that offends my sensibility is that one approach is inclusive, and the other exclusive.
So, to my true purpose for writing here.
I have also encountered a form of fundamentalism in my professional teaching life. But here the focus is much more than “professional.” It is about something I have touched on periodically. Now, I will attempt to counter it head-on. I do not do it lightly.
Bluntly, a particular brand of fundamentalism is at the very heart of our current national, democratic, Constitutional dilemma.
The political environment got us here, but this is not about “politics as usual.” Rather, quite literally, we are here because of a fierce brand of economic, financial fundamentalism.
We all probably are familiar with the name Adam Smith. He is known as the father of so-called “free market” economics (if one does the due diligence to study his writings, they will find that today’s idea of the phrase is, in essence, a distillation of a very complex philosophy—he was a moral philosopher first, not an economist).
Along the way, a series of economists took a single idea to heart. To paraphrase:
“Adam Smith's famous phrase about free markets is the ‘invisible hand.’ He used this metaphor to explain how self-interested individuals, by pursuing their own gain, unknowingly promote the overall good of society, efficiently regulating production and resource distribution without government intervention.”
Take a moment to contemplate that.
Though it may appeal to any one of us individually (in this time and place), it is not a fundamental truth. Smith was writing during the eighteenth century in Scotland. At the time, his country was moving away from the feudal system and just beginning to leave farming, evolving into manufacturing and commercialism. The magical phrase was written totally in that context.
Over time, generations of “economists” adopted and taught through this lens. Others rejected it because of their own work and eventually engaged in vigorous debate about its efficacy in building functional economies.
With respect to the “markets” he was referring to, all buyers and sellers were small and lacked market power.
A single economist literally put this free market gospel into play.
Milton Friedman, a professor at the University of Chicago, wrote a piece in the New York Times that took the market by storm—converting business, educators, and the public to this “simple” proclamation.
Here is my summary:
“Milton Friedman’s 1970 essay, The Social Responsibility of Business Is to Increase Its Profits, published in The New York Times Magazine, argued that a corporation's sole responsibility is to maximize shareholder value while adhering to law and ethical custom. He described corporate social responsibility (CSR) as ‘pure and unadulterated socialism’ and argued that managers spending stakeholder money on social causes act as ‘unwitting puppets’ of anti-capitalist forces.”
The following thirty years saw a major move to do away with the regulatory economy created by Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s “New Deal” after World War II.
In 2010, the U.S. Supreme Court issued a ruling that affirmed the idea that corporations were individuals whose rights of “free speech” were protected by the First Amendment—and that money was a form of speech.
Six years later, a presidential election was heavily influenced by unlimited amounts of money that flowed into campaigns.
What does this have to do with fundamentalism?
The tale that I have just told leads me to believe that at least two forms of fundamentalism—probably three—are responsible for our catastrophic and extremely precarious erosion of our Constitutional principles, our democratic republic, and the American experiment that sought independence and freedom from oppression.
Enough already.
What do I see as the fundamentalist forces at play?
Today’s markets were crafted by a single idea that caused a revolutionary shift of managerial emphasis—from responsible care for employees, customer satisfaction, and community involvement—to the sole concern for profit and the bottom line.
“Christian Nationalism” (not to be confused with “patriotism”) insists on belief in a single doctrine of spiritual truth, tending toward “theocracy” to the extent that a political figure might be seen as sent by God.
Extreme egotism can culminate in the belief that one is the center of all power, to the detriment of any care for others.
In other words:
Extreme pursuit of profits led to an imbalance of political power.
Fervent attachment to one religious truth by those who felt oppressed resulted in misplaced allegiance to a flawed leader.
And that “anointment” has created a world in chaos.
Fundamentalism: Turns out it is not “fundamental” at all.
It is, instead, a veil of ignorance behind which to hide.
It is not “thinking.”
It makes “clear” thinking unnecessary—we have one rule to guide every decision.
It has given us “vile” leadership under the guise of a “higher being.”
It has given us “free markets” that have become “conventional wisdom” in such a way that we can no longer listen to alternative ways of governing—or even true “being.”
Economists have been treated as prophets, offering a simple way (the invisible hand of the “market”) for all decision-making—both in our businesses and even in society (and to finance their doctrinal faith).
Nothing truly matters but the ever-evolving “bottom line” of profit and progress.
We truly do worship bigger and bigger piles of money—the love of which is deep and wide—both essential and fundamental.
For those with eyes, let them see—and repent.
Lie prostrate before the Constitution.
All forms of fundamentalism proceed from a common core—that is, to make complex decision-making simpler.
Their strategies are also similar and simple: convince and convert.
Convincing enough people means, for them, that more of us will be on the same page. Converting means that, because of the first goal, simplicity increases—greater conversion lessens the noise from dissenters and troublemakers.
Dissenters are marginalized, labeled a danger to whatever the now-common goal happens to be.
Fundamentalist religion claims a single deity or prophet.
Fundamentalist capitalism claims that a corporation has only one purpose: maximizing and protecting profit for its “owners.”
Those who are not believers will only hinder the effort to convert. Converts must be extreme believers. Any crack in their armor allows doubts to creep in, thereby undermining the ability to make simple decisions—slowing down the process toward accomplishing the “goal.”
Efficiency is hampered by people who ask questions, and (in the process) the effectiveness of our governmental oversight suffers.
After all, that is just me.
What might you say in return?
The Tree of Knowledge
Where knowledge begins and what it asks of us.
By Clay Hipp
Rainbow Tree (Mindanao gum tree), Cécile Gambini, from book—Strange Trees
Do the humanities create “knowledge”?
It’s a question I have been thinking about after encountering a book by Chris Haufe, a philosopher Joanie recently studied in one of her classes.
It is a questions that sits at the center of an ongoing debate about the relationship between the arts and sciences—between what can me measured and what must be experienced.
In thinking about this issue, I have come to a conclusion that feels, at least to me, definitive. Unequivocally, the humanities—and the arts they foster—are not simply a source of knowledge. They are, in many ways, the origin of the search for it.
Or at the very least, the place where that search begins.
In the process of becoming a “writer,” I have found myself reading more, both in quantity and (I hope) in quality (by my own standards).
I have found it has made me read differently.
Let me explain.
I now concentrate on the text, its manner of delivery, and the reasons why the writer may have chosen to write in the first place.
In the process, I have found my writing beginning to “communicate” with the texts. Phrases, whole sentences, and the ideas behind them imprint themselves and insist on being analyzed and contemplated.
Within that process, It made me think again of the question, “How does one become a writer?”
Which brought up a familiar piece of advice: “Write what you know.”
That seems to imply very strongly that one should rely on “knowledge” as the basis for beginning.
But… it may only start the process and mechanics. One may begin to learn whether they have the tools and the intelligence, but the true art of writing—and the continuing inspiration to write—is in the discovery of what you do not know.
Allow me to throw out a few phrases that have recently stuck with me from the world of literature:
“Fast is slow and slow is smooth.”
“Mind is memory.”
A rediscovery:
“Hope springs eternal.”
“There are no words, but there are only words.”
These are not ideas that sprang from scientific “truths.”
They do not explicitly “explain” themselves, and they cannot be “proven.”
They require examination and contemplation to decide whether they are helpful in the process of living well—or understanding what life is all about.
But in this process of thinking about them, are they not useful in the very pondering of what we actually “know”?
Spend a little time rolling them around in your mind.
One comes from a marvelous work of fiction; one from a work about the nature of “consciousness”; another from a very significant work of poetry; and the last from an unknown source.
The essence and idea for each resides in the humanities.
I have the significant feeling that a great writer could weave a masterpiece around these few short phrases—maybe a novel, maybe a philosophical treatise, a love poem, or even (gasp!) a scientific breakthrough.
We could spend a weeklong retreat exploring the very human thoughts and feelings that they bring to mind.
Even I, only just learning to write, might find an essay or two—not that they would “prove” anything.
So where does that leave us… you?
It has inspired me to begin offering you, my readers, some suggestions for groups of books (reading lists) that center around a chosen theme.
I would suggest that they could serve a number of purposes:
– a list that one could simply dive in and out of
– a yearlong voyage of discovery
– or even an in-house book group for shared discussion
The possibilities are endless, and the potential rewards are great.
A Reading List:
Earth, Time, and Discovery
Just allow me to say that I cannot recommend these works more highly.
This collection comes from a group of writers who became acclaimed experts in their fields. They studied, in various ways, what can be called “Earth Science.”
But these works were not written for professional colleagues; rather, they were written to tell the rest of us what they did—and what they have come to “know” through a lifetime of work (rather like memoirs).
Reading almost any seriously created work of literature is a worthy venture.
But my continuing joy in literature is finding books that belong to a stream of discovery.
These books follow the story of how this earth came into existence, how it has changed over the eons, and what its major challenges are today.
The list:
– The Immense Journey — Loren Eiseley
– Braiding Sweetgrass — Robin Wall Kimmerer
– Finding the Mother Tree — Suzanne Simard
– Turning to Stone — Marcia Bjornerud
– The Invention of Nature: Alexander von Humboldt’s New World — Andrea Wulf
If you choose to work through these authors, it may feel as if you have earned a “master’s” degree in natural history.
Footnote
Eiseley — anthropologist turned naturalist (and somewhat “mystical”)
Kimmerer — biologist, naturalist, and advocate for Native ways (member of the Potawatomi people)
Simard — forestry biologist
Bjornerud — geologist
Wulf — historian and science writer
If nothing else, consider reading Eiseley’s small book.
It just might tempt you to go further.
Coda:
I will end where I began.
I believe that the title is evocative and contains the “root” of this debate over where knowledge comes from.
The full title could have ended with “of good and evil”. I chose not to make it biblical.
Yet, is it not sobering to recall that one of our first references in literature that is universally known is that when we become “conscious”, we are told that we are going to have to choose between those two essential concepts? —that knowledge is revealed in the natural world.
I would suggest that it still is.
Is This the End or a New Beginning? The Love That Might Remake Us
On Greene's Sarah Miles, Merton’s epiphany and whether compassion can still bridge our divide
by Clay Hipp
German Love Chest, Ella Josephine Sterling 1935
“When did The Land of the Free
become The Home of the Afraid?
Afraid of the world, afraid of the truth,
afraid of each other.
This ain’t the country my grandfather fought for, but I still see the hate he fought against.
Give rest to the tired, give mercy to the poor. Give warmth to the huddled masses
And I’ll show you freedom.”
All right, am going to give this one more try.
The country we love ……and care for……. no longer exists.
It is gone but not forgotten—it is still a wonderful “idea” to embrace, hold onto.
Just now, it is divided against itself. We are being ripped asunder by two extreme factions who do not even seem to be able to speak to each other. They can only point at each other, blame one another for the shape we are in, and put labels on the other: there are “deplorables” and “elite leftists”. With this approach, nothing will ever get better, only worse. They feed on each other’s dislikes and say that “your” actions prove their point. Neither faction can create a consensus, nor govern us.
We cannot continue to claim different “truths”. Social justice and individual rights are simply two sides of our national “union,” which makes the notion of “equality” a significant challenge. Where does hope for the future lie? In the center, where our basic “values” reside. (Home, family, beauty, care, community, the wisdom of the natural world, a belief in something larger than ourselves.)
As it is, I am afraid that “hate” actually exists in both camps among the most radical elements. Certainly, there are disagreements over preferred “policies,” but I sense very little conversation over those. It is mostly about personal identity which, currently, is the primary basis on which loyalty to political parties is based. Crossing over is nearly possible.
OK, enough analysis.
If my observations are correct, much of what is happening is generated, at its core, by built-up, extremely negative, personal and emotional enmity which always borders on hatefulness.
How can we possibly find, extend, compassion for one another?
Only if there is still a residuum of what is sometimes referred to as “brotherly love”. Is love only about special individuals or within families? Is there a force that is as strong as hate to counterbalance what I have been trying to describe?
Honestly, one should be able to discern that I do not know.
Perhaps a couple of anecdotes will aid our quest (and perhaps give us hope for our future as a, currently “disunited”).
How does “Love” Work? Ponder this:
“In Graham Greene's novel The End of the Affair, the narrator, Maurice Bendrix, describes Sarah Miles as having a distinctive way of interacting with others, noting her 'way of touching people with her hands, as though she loved them"
This habitual gesture is one of the first things Bendrix notices about Sarah, reflecting a natural capacity for warmth, even before the deeper, more spiritual shifts in her character occur.
Throughout the novel, Sarah's capacity for love transforms from a focused, passionate, and adulterous love for Bendrix into a broader, almost saintly love that extends to others.”
So, is this a quality that exists in some humans? Is it hidden somewhere in all of us? Can we, by extending it, bring it forth?
Can it be planted in a way that it will grow into a part of the world order?
Another:
“This famous experience is known as the "Louisville epiphany" or the "Fourth and Walnut epiphany," and is described by Trappist monk Thomas Merton in his book Conjectures of a Guilty Bystander.
On March 18, 1958, while on errands in downtown Louisville, Kentucky, at the corner of Fourth Street and Walnut Street (now Muhammad Ali Blvd), Merton was suddenly struck by a profound sense of connection to the crowded city streets.
Merton felt an overwhelming sense of love for the strangers around him, feeling a deep, inescapable connection to them.
He described this as waking from a "dream of separateness," letting go of a "spurious self-isolation" that he had previously maintained through his monastic life.
Merton felt he could see the inner beauty of the people, expressing that if they realized their true nature, it would eliminate war, hatred, and greed.
This moment marked a pivotal shift for Merton, transforming him from a "world-denying" monk to a contemplative who embraced the world, recognizing God in the midst of everyday life.” [I should add that Merton was hard at work attempting to blend his Christian beliefs with those of Eastern religions such as Buddhism. He was, in fact, at a conference in Thailand when he suffered an accidental death. (He was only 53.) While Merton was not interested in what these traditions had to offer as doctrines and institutions, he was interested in what each said of the depth of human experience.]
What are we to make of this? Does it suggest any answers to my questions above? I am encouraged by these two stories that perhaps we can be better, do better. Is love simply there waiting to emerge and change us?
I find myself depending on that “truth” to encourage all of us to seek a way to bridge the huge gap that divides us.
Listen to a very wise songwriter:
It's really hard to hate anyone
When you know what they've lived through
Findin' out that we occupy
Somebody else's opposin' side
On the banks of some great divide
Two versions of a dream
Countless revisions of history
Tryin' to tell us the future
I wanna call off the cavalry
Declare no winners or losers
And forgive our shared mistakes
You can pick the time and place
I wanna sit with my enemies
And say "we should have done this sooner"
While I look them in the face
Maybe that will crack the case
-Taylor Goldsmith (Dawes)
If we truly desire to rebuild our democratic ideal, we could do worse than to listen to these words of Franklin Delano Roosevelt.
“Let us now and here highly resolve to resume the country’s interrupted march along the path of real progress, of real justice, of real equality for all of our citizens, great and small,” New York governor Franklin Delano Roosevelt said to the delegates at the Democratic National Convention in 1932 as American democracy struggled to resist fascism.
“Out of every crisis, every tribulation, every disaster, mankind rises with some share of greater knowledge, of higher decency, of purer purpose,” FDR said. “Today we shall have come through a period of loose thinking, descending morals, an era of selfishness, among individual men and women and among Nations…. Let us be frank in acknowledgment of the truth that many amongst us have made obeisance to Mammon, that the profits of speculation, the easy road without toil, have lured us from the old barricades. To return to higher standards, we must abandon the false prophets and seek new leaders of our own choosing.”
“I pledge you, I pledge myself, to a new deal for the American people,” FDR concluded. “Let us all here assembled constitute ourselves prophets of a new order of competence and of courage. This is more than a political campaign; it is a call to arms. Give me your help, not to win votes alone, but to win in this crusade to restore America to its own people.”
Let those who have ears listen hard, and deeply, and take these ideas “to heart”. Begin to care again.
“We are here to love each other, that is all.” (Zuly)
A Meditation: As Far As the Eye Can See
Looking back across the centuries: what the “great guide” taught me about the liminal space between knowing and unknowing
By Clay Hipp
Imagine that you have camped under the stars on the pinnacle of a small mountain that rises from the relatively level plains of the Carolina Piedmont.
Because it is at the very end of an ancient mountain range, there is a 360-degree view of the Blue Ridge to the northwest, and the farms that surround it, and its sister peaks to the east.
Waking early, there is complete darkness…..
As the sky begins to lighten, the blue hour begins—a period that is neither dark nor light—and ends with the rising of the orange orb at the eastern horizon.
Almost suddenly, the whole sky is ablaze with red.
If one looks to the west, you have a view to the peaks of the range that stretches from north Georgia to the White Mountains of northern Maine.
The phenomenon is “as far as the eye can see”, in this case, around fifty miles.
The native name for this big hill translates as “the Great Guide.”
The people who were here well before our appearance used it as a landmark for traversing the many trails they followed for trade and hunting and fishing and interacting with similar people.
If one tends to be introspective, the new day symbolizes the fact that yesterday is gone but not forgotten, and wonders what this day might bring.
More deeply, they might see the past as it slides away (and the lessons learned), and the promise of a future that is completely in their hands to create.
This is the gift that a true encounter with what our natural world can provide.
One might also say, let this moment “guide” me as a map for my very own precious life.
Now imagine looking due east along the spine of the rest of the range as it seeks to join the Blue Ridge in Virginia.
Valleys, fields, and forests on both sides.
If one looks carefully, they might get glimpses of rustic shelters of wood and grass and animal skins, sometimes set against the slopes of granite cliffs, and perhaps caves, where the native people lived and worked.
One might be able to trace trails along the forests and fields.
We know they were there because when farmers plow their fields today, they often unearth beautiful arrow points of native quartz.
The experts who made them had a purpose, but they often show signs of artisanship as well.
Growing up, I knew a man who had a huge collection.
He displayed them on canvases and hung them around his house.
As a group, they were impressive.
He asked that I look at and hold them.
He had talked with experts who claimed that they could see the similarities, but also distinguishing styles.
They speculated that each “artist” expressed them differently.
A thing that is useful could also be beautiful, both at the same time.
Perhaps this reveals much.
Fast forward to the 18th century.
From the same vantage point, you might see streams of wagons and animals and people traveling paths and dirt tracks from north to south along what became known as the Great Wagon Road, seeking new “opportunities.”
They would settle in the Appalachians and the Piedmont of the Carolinas and north Georgia (my Scots-Irish and German ancestors).
In the early 21st century, one might gaze due east across the interstate, and see a small triangular field against a group of hardwoods and notice the orderliness of row after row of what looked like fences covered with vegetation.
Grapevines—mine.
If one spent a few days helping out, he or she might observe wild turkeys, groundhogs, does and fawns, and hear overhead the beating of wings and the cries of red-tailed hawks and the occasional pileated woodpecker (which are the size of crows and the largest since the extinction of ivory bills in the swamps of Louisiana).
On the vines themselves, “helpful” praying mantises and ladybug beetles (they both eat aphids).
Before my vineyard came along, the red clay and quartz soil grew what the farmer next door called the “best tobacco” he ever harvested.
That little mountain has seen a lot.
Can you see why Jomeokee is a sacred place for me?
Late in the afternoon (of which I spent many), if one watched the sun descend, it appeared to be making a landing directly on the peak, “a spaceship,” one might say.
It hurts me to know that moments such as these have so little value to many.
As a matter of fact, perhaps they might even be considered a “waste of time.”
Just think of what one might actually “do” with their precious time!
Jens Kruger has given us a little tune that speaks directly to this thought, which he calls “Beautiful Nothing.”
On first listen, it seems simple enough.
On the second or third, you notice something that you had only noted but wondered about—about two-thirds of the way through, there is a brief pause of perhaps ten seconds.
Is it over?
Then the music returns…just where it had stopped.
What moved the composer to do this?
More listening did not provide a clear answer.
Other composers have been known to intentionally “surprise” their audiences (Joseph Haydn is best known for this in his Symphony No. 94 in G Major, composed in 1791, commonly nicknamed the “Surprise Symphony”).
Was this Kruger’s idea?
I have come to believe, knowing him slightly, that it was the true message, hidden in the title.
The pause was the equivalent of the poet’s method of leaving something “unsaid,” which actually makes verse so different from narrative prose.
We are given the gift of reading between the lines, reflecting on the theme, rather than being “told” everything.
The rational portion of our brains wishes to explain everything; the creative mind is aware of “not knowing” and asks questions rather than giving answers.
In other “words,” my truth of the composition is that silence—pause—allows one to search for meaning and is the place where “beautiful nothings” reside—yours and mine.
I consider those few minutes as the sun sets behind the pinnacle as a “beautiful nothing” moment, to be experienced with new eyes and ears.
What more does one truly need?
How has appreciation of the natural gifts from the earth fallen so far down the scale?
Say what you will, “beauty” has its own throne in the earthly kingdom.
Our truest “knowledge” arises from and teaches us all the natural wisdom we need.
Everything else is “artificial.”
I mentioned earlier the native name “Jomeokee” (JO-mee-oh-kee) means “great guide” and was translated to “Pilot” in English by settlers.
I am moved by thoughts of our native brothers and sisters as they still occupy the fields and forests around the base of the little mountain.
I can also imagine my Scots-Irish and German ancestors as they encountered the trails and blessings of still wild and mysterious country, looking at the road ahead and being comforted to be shown the way toward what they hoped would be their special “promised land.”
Would that we all should read and learn from the history and stories of those who came before and helped form the beginnings of our American (native and immigrant) Dream.
And in the process, let it guide you towards your own a better place to be…
A Poetic Wish
The beginning of each day is neither red nor blue.
It is, however, as we choose to see it.
Being “betwixt” and between, we sometimes feel lost…
Is there a middle ground
Where we might meet as equals
And speak as brothers and sisters
And blend our beings into new forms
Of togetherness…?
Despite the fact that it seems, at first, a “purple haze”
That blurs our vision, it can yet reveal truth
Rather than allow conflict to remain amongst us
Is a new dawn possible…and
Who will work to make it so?
We need to go as far as the mind can travel…
—E. Clayton Hipp, 4/2/2026, at home
Deep Purple
Finding Our Way Back To the Middle Ground: A Call for Unity
by Clay Hipp
Ed Mell, 'Veils of Time,' 12x30, oil on linen, 2006.
Let me just say it, I am tired of pretending. Tired of careful words, measured phrases, tactical silences.
I am afraid—deeply, deeply afraid—and I suspect you are too.
Not alone or in private moments, but a creeping permeating fear that we are watching something slip away. Something we cannot name but desparetly need to hold onto.
It seems that our collective consciousness senses that this moment in time is something different. We may be on the verge of losing it all.
And yet, we cannot allow ourselves to be paralyzed by despair. There is a way to toward a different reality. But it must be pursued vigorously by all of us who “believe” in that ephemeral idea/dream that led us to this place and time.
We must each end the talk. The rhetoric. The finger-pointing.
We must look deeply inside and begin to listen—to voices that are wiser, less driven by ego, more attentive to something larger than ourselves.
In short…..the common good.
This is hard to think about. Hard to hear. Almost too much to bear.
So, begin close to home. Embrace your friends and family. Lift each other up.
And then…..the harder part.
Consider those for whom you have very little affinity.
Taylor Goldsmith’s poignant song “Crack the Case”, about navigating broken relationships, is especially relevant here:
“I wanna sit with my enemies
And say—we should have done this sooner
While I look them in the face
Findin’ out that we occupy
Somebody else’s opposin’ side
On the banks of some great divide
Two versions of a dream
I wanna call off the cavalry
Declare no winners or losers
And forgive our shared mistakes”
Look, I am aware that this might seem platitudinous, pretentious, presumptuous. I can do nothing but say to you that this is not about me. It is about us and the country we call home—perhaps still love.
I, too, want all this to pass.
To wake up and find it was only a bad dream. Unfortunately, it is too very real to ignore. If we do not all wake up now and act, however imperfectly—the fear of which we speak might become firmly grounded.
My point?
One that I mentioned in my last post, but one that I perhaps did not fully honor:
There is, in this country, still a vast middle ground.
Sadly, we seem to have wanted it from two very different perspectives. As the two extreme ends of the spectrum fought it out, the rest of us became too tired to pay this “internecine war” any attention.
But, in the process, we also became complacent and simply allowed them to scream and shout so loudly that the good still left in us withered while we looked after our own little lives, removed ourselves from the chaos.
“As the extremes have grown louder, the rest of us have grown quieter. ”
Now, we are left with letting what used to be simply “politics as usual” become nothing but noise about seeing who can throw the most money at the other side.
Consequently, that has become the true battleground. We are bombarded constantly by those who tell us that they will lose if we do not shell out. It often seems like ideas are secondary and integrity is optional. Power and winning seem to be the only prize.
Perhaps there is another way—not through force, but through ideas. Integrity and sincerity that is shared.
And yet, there is something even deeper we must face:
We may have lost our common “culture” —the very ground on which our mutual understanding once stood.
When I was growing up, we talked to each other about music and books and TV shows that we shared because there were only three networks—three.
We talked about Matt Dillion and Miss Kitty. We hummed the same jingles. We each had our own favorite six o’clock news anchor and while each had somewhat different points of view—they were thoughtful about how they delivered them.
They earned our trust because they seemed to care about the truth, not just ratings.
Most importantly, we “listened” to each broadcast and to each other—around the water cooler at work and on our front porches after dinner. We all seemed to disagree about the same things, had similar ways to talk about it and a basic set of facts.
Today, our modern culture has moved us far away from this kind of shared experience. You watch your news feed. I watch mine. An algorithm decides what you see. We are not just disagreeing, we are living entirely different realities.
Just as pertinent were our chosen “places of worship.” Each—Presbyterians, Methodists, Baptists, Church of God, Lutherans, and more—approached matters of faith differently, but I cannot recall a single argument about the truth or any attempt to “convert.”
I grew up in a household where my parents were Baptist and Methodist. I became neither. (Okay, there were groups who would knock on the front door and hand out their pamphlets.)
We were all different, yet, somehow together.
Coke or Pepsi. Chevy or Ford. Tiger or Gamecocks. We were mill people and townies, Democrats and Republicans, and we did not always speak the same language.
But we were Americans, proud of our shared heritage, and serious about state and federal “policies” with which we disagreed.
What I think changed: we no longer gathered.
We retreated to our own corners of the world, seeking the comfort of like-minded podcasts, curated social media feeds and self-selected communities. The echo chambers started to take over.
In the midst of all this noise - we have lost something vital. The uncomfortable necessity of encountering people different from ourselves. Votes in the legislatures were bipartisan compromises. We disagreed, sometimes strongly. But we we all shared something underneath it all: A sense of belonging, a sense of place and—most crucially—a willingness to meet in the middle because we had to.
We lived next to each other. We worked next to each other. We didn’t have the luxury of alienation.
Please, understand—this is not nostalgia. I am not suggesting we go backward. I am talking about something deeper: the very essence of democracy. It requires differing views and a shared commitment. Not commitment to being right, but a commitment about what matters.
We have lost that—and we need to find it again.
Deep Purple Coalition
I am not indulging in wordplay.
“Purple”—
as in not red or blue.
“Deep”—
as in thoughtful and committed.
“Coalition”—
as in joined together.
I believe that there is a vast population of people who exist in this space.
They are:
Uncommitted, unrepresented and largely unheard. Many are as uneasy and perhaps even frightened (as am I). Consequently, they have not yet found a common voice and so, they remain silent.
But what if a galvanizing voice began to emerge? What if it was formed by —encouragement, recognition and through one another? Mutual encouragement from those who share their values.
I firmly believe that if there is enough evidence of the existence of this emerging “voice,” and that someone with personality, drive and hope will emerge to speak on our behalf. We have been silent much too long. This is not about winning, this is about whether or not we are willing to show up. I fear we do not, we risk losing something far greater.
So I beg you, Let’s begin this work now.
Here is what being part of the Deep Purple Coalition means:
Have conversations with your friends, family, and receptive acquaintances. Not arguments—conversations. Ask them what they're afraid of. Listen to their answer without trying to "win."
Look for those who are tired of the extremes. They're everywhere— you'll recognize them by their weariness with partisanship and their hunger for something more.
Tell them about the middle ground. About purple. About this idea—that there are millions of us who are tired of partisanship. They hunger for something more, like the ideas I have mentioned. Perhaps, forward this article, or start a small group. Anything we can do to create spaces where nuance is allowed are the kind of spaces where I see our ideas begin to thrive.
Document the emergence. When you see evidence of the coalition growing— share it. Post about it. Write about it. We need evidence that this "voice" exists — this evidence will be the force that galvanizes this movement.
How can you join?
Well, there isn’t a membership card, and we don’t have any t-shirts or a leader (yet). It only means that:
You refuse to accept that America is only red or blue
You are willing to have difficult conversations with people who see things differently.
You believe in the common good, not just personal victory
You are ready to listen, especially when it is hard
The thought of our voices rising, gathering together, gives me hope for a kind of momentum that might take shape, even as early as this fall.
Who is with me?
Coda:
Numerous books and articles show an emerging theme: that if we are to sustain ourselves as a people who can still look after one another, we must recover something deeper—our shared cultural values. For me that means that we must move toward an American “renaissance”.
We must once again care—and give our attention— to all the arts:
Music. Serious literature. Time at the table with family and friends. Spending time outdoors. Sharing with each other the things things we hold dear, and in matters of faith (in the broadest understanding of the word). We are terribly fragmented…..yet we are the only ones who can put ourselves back together. Our “rational” brains are not enough. They have given us our obsession with success and growth and wealth.
And yes, I have hope.
I’m thankful to have young friends who see things differently. They need our support and approval—and a sense that their views are worthy of our attention. That we recognize their feeling of helplessness. We, by and large, are not leading…
Let’s spread the word, and perhaps it will take root.
This all feels so helpless so what can it hurt to try?
Giant oaks from little acorns grow…
Democracy: Shades of Gray
Washington warned us. Adams and Jefferson didn't listen. Are we finally ready to?
By Clay Hipp
Lately, I find myself wondering.
Is this the end, or a new beginning?
This is not the way it was supposed to be, and yet…….
it also feels almost inevitable.
George Washington in his farewell address warned us that two principles were essential:
He urged Americans to cherish national unity as the "main pillar" of their prosperity and liberty, warning against political factions and regionalism.
He advocated for an independent foreign policy, urging the nation to avoid permanent alliances and entangling political connections with foreign powers.
Is that ominous or not?
How could we not have taken to heart these sentiments from the "Father of Our Country"?
Yet immediately after he left office, Adams and Jefferson began an "internecine" war of factionalism. Do we not find ourselves in exactly the opposite place that Washington warned of, and, ironically, just like Adams and Jefferson?
The story is too complex to tell, but true patriots must research and study it. One will see that "party politics" were already in their infancy. The roots of this challenge to the great American experiment were already coming to a slow boil.
How many of us are aware of this prophetic story?
My guess has to be that the "founding brothers" were so caught up in holding things together and also having to keep a wary eye out for Great Britain and the crown, and the (still) loyal "Tories" amongst us, to be perfect protectors of our newly founded republic.
In other words, it is up to us to choose, and make, our own destiny.
What is your dream?
What are you willing to do to make it so?
An even bigger question—are we as a people willing to receive a long due history lesson about what our country was and has been?
It seems clear to this brand-new octogenarian that the teaching and learning of history, in general, has deteriorated so immensely that nothing short of an American commitment to civic education can turn our ignorance around.
In other words, we are living in a period of American intellectual darkness.
Is our current state of affairs not clearly obvious?
Where will the wisdom come from? Where are our "intellectual" leaders?
If you find this little rant a bit much, fine. But before you reject it out of hand, do me the favor of painting a different vision.
Are you content that we will exit this current difficulty unharmed and simply resume our comfortable lifestyle?
How does that work?
Our national governing institutions are strained. The Congress and the agencies that THEY/WE created out of necessity because of the complexities of modern life have been depleted of expertise and the ability to carry out their essential functions. The personnel remaining often serve narrow interests rather than the public good.
The "independent" freedom of press guaranteed by the First Amendment to the Constitution, for goodness' sake, has struggled to fulfill its essential role.
When truth becomes elusive, what is left?
I have found a tentative answer. I should be able to offer something after painting such a dire picture of where we are.
Did I say "reformation"? It must have been a slip of the tongue.
I meant a peaceful "revolution" which is a necessary pre-condition to replacing those powers that have torn down all of our sacred "principles".
It took a revolution to found this country. Do we have any true patriots equal to the task of reviving it?
In short, we might just need a "secular savior".
One must hope that there is a statesman or stateswoman to emerge and lead us forward. If not, we are on our own to find a way to survive.
So, I held this in my mind until an inspiration appeared. I re-read the Declaration and the Preamble to the Constitution. The words were familiar and we all (I hope) know some of the magic words. I tried, as I read, to "decipher" them anew.
Two phrases began to merge:
"Declaration of the Thirteen United States of America" (As it was originally titled and passed by the Continental Congress on July 4th, 1776)
"...that all Men are created equal… with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness"
Take note. Thirteen "united states" declared this and laid down principles upon which they would recognize individual worth.
THE FOUNDING INSIGHT
When the Constitution was ratified ("thirteen"!) years later it began "we the people… in order to establish a more perfect 'union'". From our very beginning the founders recognized that these very diverse colonies "needed" each other to achieve their common goal.
But, even then, they were strange "bedfellows" (if anything even less alike than we are now). Add the "freed" people seventy-five or so years later and, well, you can see where these documents, and the people who declared them, were bound.
I began to see that these words may not mean what we might have thought they meant.
Let me explain.
Return to George Washington's parting concerns. It seems, in the middle of our first decade, that when he referred to the need for "national unity", he was speaking about the sovereign states, not individual people. Why had I not seen this before?
Does that make it any less valuable for an average citizen to arrive at that insight?
But what might that mean for you and me mired in conflict abroad and terrible political disagreements here at home?
Let's think together.
The states were colonies, created for a variety of reasons. When they were brought together around a "common enemy", their "sole" purpose for declaring independence was achieving self-governance. Individually, they stood little chance against the military of the King. They chose to "cooperate" despite their previous significant differences.
They won.
Now what?
Were they truly a "nation"?
Clearly, no. It was simply an "idea" on which to build.
On the ground, we were still individualistic "pioneers" pursuing the opportunities for success and gain, and having a great love for "property", having been serfs and subjects (and in some cases "criminals"). We were of different heritage and religion and culture.
How could anyone, in retrospect, think that we could outlast and overcome our individuality?
Eventually, western expansion, and the quest for precious minerals and the availability of wide open spaces, led to yet another serious difficulty—we were not the only "Americans". When we encountered their own claims of a different kind of "sovereignty", we added yet another layer of complexity to the cauldron of humanity.
Do we begin to see?
Our current schism is a reflection of what we have always been, and who we have become, and suddenly our individual differences have overcome our idea of Union.
So, the question before us is whether we can return to the idea of "Federalism", shared "sovereignty of each state" among very different groups of people.
The founders recognized this from the beginning by giving the populations of each state power in Congress by direct choice of who would represent them in the House. At the same time, each "state" had the same number of Senators.
Are we capable of reconciling our differences by putting away our individual "preferences" through a different idea of Unity? That is letting each state through the political process, one person, one vote, reflect and define its priorities and have our destiny worked out in a true "original" Congressional process.
My suggestion?
The world is neither black nor white, but rather "shades of grey".
It is neither blue nor red.
I have the sense that at the heart of the matter most states are some shade of purple.
Let's band together—establish a "Deep Purple Coalition" (not to be confused with a "party"), but rather a huge uprising of voters who occupy the territory around the "center" of the population.
No left or right, blue or red, and no radical beliefs that they have all the answers.
Open minds and open hearts—people who have seen and experienced the worst possible outcome for democracy.
Legislators and fellow citizens who have forgotten how to do anything but call names and refuse to listen to the other side—even for the sake of the survival of our common dream.
Let's test the idea that we are "divided" by strong beliefs and preferences, but that we can discuss them, not as radically left or right, blue or red, but as "neighbors" who live and work together.
But only if the states themselves "re-unite" and re-declare:
"Declaration of the Thirteen United States of America"
We must not forget that we are all "purple" now.
Let's make Father Washington proud.
Baseball: The Joy of the Game
Finding grace in the unhurried, one run at a time
By Clay Hipp
Yogi Berra and Don Larson, 1956
“The one constant through all the years, Ray, has been baseball. America has rolled by like an army of steamrollers. It’s been erased like a blackboard, rebuilt, and erased again. But baseball has marked the time.”
Dear Readers,
Baseball season is here.
And with it…a realization.
I don’t experience it with the joy I used to feel.
Some teams get richer, some poorer (there seems to be a correlation).
Something about the game feels different now.
And yet—I can’t quite let it go.
Because baseball has been a steady thread running through my life.
Let me tell you why…
I have played it from sandlot, through Little and Pony League, high school, and college.
I was a Yankee fan in the fifties (my Dad’s team), a Cubs fan because I was a shortstop—and so was Ernie Banks—until 1966, when the Braves came to Atlanta.
They were awful.
But Henry Aaron was chasing Babe Ruth’s all-time home run record.
They developed a few stars and were the Southern team, so I became attached.
Eventually, they won a World Series and were a fixture at the top of the National League East for two decades.
(Chipper Jones and Greg Maddux!)
But I played—and consequently understood how difficult it was.
I never griped about how “slow” it is.
It is supposed to be.
No time clock.
And it is “never over ‘til it is over.”
Any deficit is theoretically possible to overcome in the bottom of the ninth.
Hope springs eternal in the human psyche.
It is different from any other physical game.
Each of the nine positions on the field is important—even the proverbial “right fielder,” who was almost always the smallest, least skilled, and chosen last when someone picked sides.
But it is certainly true to point to the pitcher and batter as the most crucial pieces of the puzzle.
The pitcher tries to fool the batter about what is coming next—and the batter must try to predict.
(It is much harder to hit pitches that move—curves are not an optical illusion—or when the pitcher changes speeds. A fine fastball can arrive at the plate at over 90 miles an hour.)
Imagine a batter attempting to calculate all of those variables.
All that—and more.
It is a “team game,” but there are no huddles or scrums.
Each player is truly on his own.
A single crucial strikeout or error in the field can make one the hero—or the goat—of the day.
The boundaries (foul lines and fences) merely define the playing field.
What counts is reaching base safely and, hopefully, home plate—the only place where the score is affected.
One run at a time.
You can hit a home run, or coax a walk to first base and “steal” three more bases—still only one run.
I always liked that.
Both speed and power were admired. And even if you lacked each, being a good defensive player—of whatever size and strength—could save runs. Just as important to the final score.
Catchers behind the plate had to squat down all afternoon.
Center fielders ran long distances as fast as possible to track down batted balls.
Another lovely thing…
As the game unfolded, each play was watched, appreciated, and celebrated by eight other players.
If you have never seen a home plate celebration, you have missed a lot of joy.
I remember one eventful inning when a younger teammate leapt off the bench to meet me in glee as I finished off the third out. In other words, there are many versions of a “team” sport.
My little brother and I were five years apart—just enough distance that we didn’t quite grow up alongside one another. But baseball bridged that space and became one of our greatest shared joys. We had a very technical board game with which one could actually recreate a past season due to its statistical accuracy.
During the hot summer afternoons of 1962, we “played” the entire 1961 American League schedule—and kept score (as baseball nuts did) on a huge, accountant-like ledger. Remarkably, the same top teams prevailed. Including our beloved Yankees.
Mickey Mantle and Roger Maris were neck and neck in home runs until an injury slowed Mantle—and Maris won with 61, surpassing Babe Ruth. Mantle finished with 54. (He did win the highest batting average.)
I no longer watch very many games—live or online. But I do still look at the Braves box score from the previous day.
It is kind of cool.
Because as I was growing up, there was only one “game of the week,” televised on Saturday afternoon.
The rest of the time, I would get up, pick the paper up from the front lawn, and open to the sports section to check my team.
Prior to TV, there was a “Mutual Game of the Day” on the radio. When I got my first portable, I would sometimes sit in the shade of a big oak tree on hot summer afternoons—and fantasize about being in the bleachers at Yankee Stadium. In those seemingly simple days, it did not take much to make one happy.
Oh yeah…
Before my time, Ronald Reagan broadcast baseball games on the radio. He read from a “ticker tape” to announce the games as if he were there. I guess good actors have many skills. (But he did not try to mimic the crack of the bat.)
Pity.
“Those were the days, my friend, we thought they’d never end.”
In fairness (as an update), I should report that I became caught up in the World Series pairing this year. We have a good friend with a big screen TV (we have none of any size.)
He is still a sports fan. He and I agreed to watch the series together.
Low and behold, I even talked Joanie into watching it with us. (She has almost no history with any “guy thing” sporting events.)
Knowing that I truly cared for baseball, she relented—saying that she ought to get some fluency.
We watched together.
David and I have no love for the Dodgers. (They are the arch rivals of the Braves—and have the highest payroll in the majors.) So we became caught up in the significantly underdog Blue Jays—and were devastated when the seventh game went to the Dodgers. The consensus—even among Dodger fans—was that they were significantly outplayed by a group of unknown players who had little publicity.
Wait until next year…..
Consider this:
Baseball is a “slow” game. And I, for one, do not consider this a flaw.
If you regularly feel that we are all living at the speed of commercialism—and of monster trucks on our highways and byways—take a break this spring.
If you have a college or minor league team nearby, choose a beautiful day.
Clock out. Sit in the stands and watch the play.
The crack of the bat.
The long, over-the-shoulder catch.
They are magical.
Let it flow all around you.
Surrender.
You might just discover why it was, at one time…
the American game.
Postscript
If you would like a very fine American history lesson, consider watching Ken Burns’ documentary on Baseball.
It covers roughly the period 1860–1960.
It includes politics, capitalism, racism, human nature—and more.
Even if sport is not your thing, you will learn so much about the country we call home.
Stop, Look and Listen
A note on how I’m learning to listen.
By Clay Hipp
“Stop, look, and listen.”
This basic warning now seems a cliché.
It seems to have originated with a railroad engineer, in an effort to make crossings safer. It has migrated and morphed and was taught routinely in grammar schools across the nation.
What if we brought it back in a much larger context—and made it a theme for a general cultural revival of the American Dream?
What would it require…of each and every one of us?
For me, the essential task is listening.
Stopping and looking are hard enough, but they are “physical” activities that require little thought. They are simply commands, delivered in an authoritative voice—the kind we heard each week in Hill Street Blues.
As the station sergeant dismissed all the “beat cops” on their morning rounds, he would stop them at the door by yelling:
“Hey, hey…be careful out there!!!”
Now, that was certainly a necessary and prudent thing when all manner of dangers lurked around every corner—and each policeman was fully aware of them.
But what of us?
By now, we are clearly aware of the imminent dangers to our democracy—but only when we actually stop from our busyness, listen to what has been said, and pay attention long enough for it to sink in.
Then, and only then, do we begin to reflect on the content, the ideas, and their implications—and pause…
…to ask:
What should I be doing with my time, my life?
That little soliloquy came about because of this.
My three weeks of creating, listening to, and posting Words That Sing has been an eye-opening experience—more clearly, an ear-opening one.
The major point is that, despite the fact that I have lived with most of these songs for a long time—and listened with great pleasure—I really did not “know” them at all.
Now, I like to think of myself as someone who appreciates both the music and the poetry.
How could I have been so mistaken?
Some time ago, when I began trying to write a fairly long “tome” about the songs and their writers, I was looking at them quite critically.
I needed to discern their “quality” in order to curate among the hundreds of possible pieces and assess their appropriateness for the text.
I was going to divide them into categories such as wisdom, love, wonder, and storytelling—and had to be very “critical” in choosing.
In other words, I knew them fairly intimately…
—or so I thought.
For the show, I had to become a better listener—mostly to discover their essential “messages,” rather than just how good they were.
(Had I been so superficial?)
I truly believe that I have become somewhat successful at this task.
And yet…
When I sat and truly listened to the show the next day, I became the audience.
I learned—just as I hoped you would.
Honestly, at one moment I thought, Who did this?
At another, a tear rolled down my cheek.
Please think of this only as admiration for the things these artists discerned and conveyed.
I felt honored to, in some way, channel them.
I was also reminded that, for some months now, I have sat early in the morning in the presence of other musical pieces—without words.
I listen to aid in becoming more mindful and less “rational.”
I want to enter the larger world with more of a mental clean slate.
At the beginning, these were just pieces from my past that I considered calming and peaceful—and, of course, beautiful.
Day after day, week by week, my listening began to result in less “thinking.”
Distracting thoughts and ideas could be let go with more ease.
It was a pleasing thing.
One might think (as indeed I might have) that the musical compositions would “wear out their welcome,” as the “old timers” might say—and that I would need to find replacements.
They did not.
And I did not.
Quite to the contrary, something entirely different began to take place.
Without even realizing it, I began to follow the rising and falling of the melodies—and their “conversations” with the other lines of music in creating harmony.
I began to try to identify the various instruments.
In one ten-minute piece, I discovered that it was made up of three related sections—and that the beginning and end of each section was noted not by a pause, but rather by a tiny solo announced by a particular instrument (a flugelhorn!).
I identified the main theme and followed it from horn to horn.
I noticed, at some point, that the most dramatic part at the center was made more so by the entrance of timpani in the background.
This critical “entering” of the piece, on my part, has induced greater pleasure.
Now, I should note here that I have no formal training in music.
(I do have a pretty good ear, having sung in choral groups, and I have listened with great appreciation to complex classical music.)
But here, I am reporting a phenomenon discovered entirely by listening more deeply—and, as a result, analyzing the experience.
Now things will get a little more serious.
I should not have been surprised about my own “listening” deficit.
Poor listening skills are a rampant issue.
And mind you, I am not talking just about deep listening, but rather no listening at all—or, at best, very shallow listening.
It is about our constant distraction.
There is sound, noise, everywhere.
It tends to drown out everything—including our very own thoughts.
As a consequence, we simply stop paying attention—to the natural world around us, or the people sharing the very same place.
“If we stop paying attention, then listening is a lost “commodity.”
Everything is merely a blur.
How can we maintain relationships—even very close ones—our children, our mates, our friends, our colleagues, and, in our current, broken world…our “enemies”?
When our fellow citizens are also enemies, the game is almost over.
The deal is up.
Democracy crumbles—and “freedom of speech” is of no avail when we fail to use it for the “good.”
I started with music because it is, in effect, another language.
I have come to understand that when I listen deeply to it, I am engaging in a form of translation.
I am deciphering musical ideas in the act of understanding the mind of the composer—and, at the same time, learning another form of communication.
Which gives me another “glimpse” of the world beyond myself.
Then it—and the people in it—are more real.
And worthy of my greater attention.
The late, very fine writer Frederick Buechner wrote a little book named Listening to Your Life.
He tells intimate stories of his life as examples of why we can learn just by remembering.
I highly recommend it for its wisdom and depth of meaning.
A confession: sometimes I feel like I come across as a professor—but this is so far from the truth.
I’m not here to teach.
I’m here to learn.
Because the person I am often speaking to in these reflections…is myself.
This website is a place where I am trying to tune into something.
To move away from distraction—and toward the act of being whole heartedly present and attentive.
If music has taught me anything, it is this:
The deeper you listen, the more there is to hear.
And maybe….
this is true of our lives as well.
The Shore
A reflection on why we return to certain places, and what they quietly give back to us.
By Clay Hipp
“Somewhere beyond the sea
Somewhere waiting for me
My lover stands on golden sand
And watches the ships that go sailing
We’ll meet beyond the shore
It’s far beyond the stars
It’s near beyond the moon
I know beyond a doubt
My heart will lead me there soon”
The place where land meets sea inspires so much literature, and song, and, it seems, the heart. We humans seem to yearn for a place apart. Some claim the mountains, others the sea.
I have sat and listened to vigorous conversations in which friends and family debate which is better. Just as we seem to break down as either “dog or cat people,” this divide feels deeper and richer, more essential.
The sea and land give us the sense of forever.
It should be this way.
Our lives are such that peace and quiet are a rare phenomenon. So we have crafted the idea of the formal vacation—a sacred time and place that even the “busiest” among us make a special effort to show up for, even as their minds are far away.
I write about “the shore” rather than “the beach” because my attachment is not just to a physical place involving sun, sand, and waves. Perhaps it is symbolic—this global reality of the edge.
No matter where we are on land, we came from the sea, and we carry somewhere in our deep cortex a common “memory” that tells us we are not truly this or that, but both.
Standing on the sand, with just my toes feeling the ebb and flow, if I let my mind go, there is a melding of sensibility.
We have settled into a grand routine of visiting just this one place twice a year—fall and spring. If we tell someone where we are going (“the beach”), they ask where. More often than not, our destination does not ring a bell.
It is a small lodge that stands on the boundary of two towns—one with a fairly well-known beach identity, the other mostly residential.
As we sit on our balcony, or at our small table, or on a comfortable couch, we see nothing but ocean about fifty yards away. Native shrubs and dunes covered with sea oats are the only things that separate us from the waves and sand.
There is a small wooden deck, virtually hidden, that provides a perch for those who wish to be more proximate to the elements.
That small wooden structure is where you can find us every morning at the beginning of the Blue Hour.
With our first cup of artisan coffee from a small local (very responsible) roasting company, we sit and wait for the main event—“Here Comes the Sun.”
But for us, the time leading up to the feature is the most precious.
Our chosen meeting of land and sea runs oddly east to west so the if we look left, we see a long stretch of sky over a pier at the “beach town”. From our view, we await “first light” as we try to assess the potential for an eye worthy display of color.
We have witnessed a few over the years that cannot be described.
Sometimes the clouds prevail, with only small rays breaking through the overcast. That too is satisfying (who could handle New Mexico-like sunsets day after day without eventually saying “ho hum”?).
Quite often, other guests arrive with cameras and cellphones to “capture” the arrival of “old Sol”. Good for them. At least they are not sleeping in and missing the best part of the day.
We usually return to our porch for a second cup and a little sustenance—enough to carry us to the obligatory trip to the purveyor of the perfect shrimp burger (yes, you heard that right), followed by a walk on the sand.
That usually calls for nap before a glass of wine on the porch or little deck, and then some fresh fish (from our favorite “Blue Ocean” specialty shop) from the surrounding waters, either grilled or pan sauteed.
The music cranks up about five.
Sometimes we go to a small “Island Grill” for dinner and conversation with familiar servers. Otherwise, we stay close to home.
(Oh yes, there are also sunsets to the right, due west. They are, more or less, optional. That separate version of the “other Blue Hour” is too full of other, more pressing events. Happy to announce though that some of our fellow guests urge us to go to the third floor, west facing, walkway to view their favorite luminary show. We try and be kind and considerate…..)
Postlude
Honestly, I tried my darnedest not to make this sound too idyllic. That seems to be elusive—or out of my control. I wrote this a few days before our departure and was probably not entirely in my right mind due to anticipation.
So I will just say this— I do not want to mislead you.
We do not simply sit on the porch and gaze at the surf and worship the sunrise.
Our lodge has someone who sets up chairs and umbrellas. On request, they will place them near the high tide line. We sometimes sit and read until our toes are tickled by the incoming water.
We walk and pick up interesting shells and smooth pebbles. We have an intimate relationship with the surf, and when the day is warm, we take a swim. Sometimes our feet encounter crabs and feel a fish brush our knees.
We live over four hours away in the Carolina Piedmont.
Each week here is a true retreat—a resetting of our personal rhythms.
Here is a glimpse of why and how—a few entries from my diary of the shore (including a freshly written entry of this mornings sunrise experience with a little video snapshot Joanie captured from the waves so you can join us in our revelry).
3/24/25
Yet another interesting sunrise.
A dark cloud bank on the eastern horizon. A break above and overhanging clouds.
Looked like a perfect setup for a complex light show.
Finally—some rising color-mostly shades of yellow with only a small hint of pink/red.
First the empty space between the cloud banks began to glow.
Horizontal bands of the shades of yellow.
Then the underside of relatively fluffy high, not cumulous, streams picked up the growing intensity of the rays building between the layers.
Finally, the true rays of the fast-approaching orb itself caused the deep surface bank to glow at its ridgeas if had been electrified.
At last, the intense first arc peeked above.
It is always a surprise to witness the speed with which the whole sun reveals itself—no mist or dust this morning to allow looking straight on.
Where is Strauss when you need him?
2/16/2025
Atlantis—our last morning until March. About the time we go out to check the sunrise.
Stormy, breakers start as far out as I can remember, almost too windy to stand against comfortably.
I stood looking for a patch of color—only a slight glow through a patch of deep cloud cover.
I closed my eyes to focus on the sound of the waves and noticed, underneath the thrashing of the tide, I heard a deep drumming, throbbing tone. It was magical, saying to the listener, “hear me, I am alive—you are too”.
We walked down to the strand to get a closer feel for the power of the ocean, to hear the sounds more deeply. The throbbing deepened and I fancied that I could feel it below my feet, through the soles of my shoes.
We had pretty much given up on the light show in the east when, suddenly, the underside of the clouds began to glow, first as pastels, then growing to a fiery orange. The glow extended from the eastern horizon to directly over our heads, and the bottom of the cloud cover was rolled and puffy, like the bellies of a herd of sheep.
It lasted for several minutes and faded very quickly.
The waves were coming in and breaking so fast that they were creating beds of foam on the sand and with the incoming tide we needed to flee to evade the threatening water.
Altogether magical, as wondrous as anything lately, we simply bathed in the surrounding phenomenon, with the fierce wind threatening to shear strands of hair from our tingling scalps.
The waning moon, just above, shared the glory.
In the east, the sun, mostly behind a cloud cover, struggled to match its preview.
3/22/2026
The first sunrise upon re-entry is always accompanied by a delicious sense of anticipation. We set the alarm for 6 a.m. to observe first light.
The pink hues illuminating the dark sky as we stepped out of our small studio apartment boded well for the show in store over the next hour.
Indescribable.
The sun rose with a foggy face making it possible to view it straight on as it ascended above the sea oats.
One could watch the world turn (into a new day).
We are simply grateful to be here.
A Picture Worth A Thousand Words
The journey from a single image to a lifetime of discovery, friendship, and presence at the table.
by Clay Hipp
Dear Reader,
"A Picture Is Worth a Thousand Words”,
well, I can do better than that. If I wrote a book about it, it would be named:
'From Dry as A Bone to Soaking Wet — in a Decade'.
Being a journey to a thousand bottles,
fifty years of good friends communing around the table,
many miles of travel to pastoral places with rows and rows of bright green and red,
and eighteen years of soirées with home-cooked cuisine, flowers and candles,
and a crystal glass reflecting the light and a shining face.
After returning from Southeast Asia and entering graduate school, a friend said, "I am going to teach you wine appreciation 101."
You see, I grew up in a Baptist home, went to a small men's college, did not join a fraternity, and entered the army after ROTC. Somehow, I never drank a drop. My first beer was at the officers' club at Fort Eustis, Virginia. In Vietnam, I wanted so badly to get drunk — but a beer and a half was all that I could stomach.
Yeah, I know. Sounds like a fairy tale.
The friend said, "Why don't you come on over and we can get started?" Unfortunately for me, he drank mostly Bordeaux — one of the most tannic, herbal red wines, with very little fruit. I could barely even swallow. I said, "Be patient with me. Let's try again next week."
When I arrived, he was on the phone and motioned for me to sit down in his empty den.
There was the traditional coffee table on which, of course, there was a very large tome. On the cover was a globe, a bottle, three beautiful glasses of different shapes and sizes filled with various colors of liquid, and a bunch of dark grapes. As I sat waiting (turned into about a half hour), I thumbed through the pages, visiting country after country.
It was a beautiful book with pictures and topographical maps and well-crafted commentaries. I came to a chapter entitled Burgundy.
As I turned the first page, I was taken by a photo of a wine barrel turned on end being used as a table. The scene was dimly lit with candles as the main source of light. On it stood a bottle, next to which was a delicate wine glass half-filled with a green-gold liquid. It must have been cool in the room (a cellar probably) because the glass was fogged up, and a single, large drop was tracing its way down the side.
“I sat transfixed. I could not take my eyes off the aesthetics of the scene. I remember thinking: “I must find out what and where this is.”
My mind's eye recalled the green-gold color and the dim candlelight filtering through, and I was haunted for days. I checked, and the book was not cheap. Fortunately, Christmas was coming, and a copy showed up under the tree. It must have weighed several pounds. I devoured it for days (I was out of school for a couple of weeks).
Here is what I learned.
The wine was a white Burgundy from a sub-region named Chablis. The color was typical of Chardonnay, but especially from that region — the northernmost, coolest place. I searched the map and found out that the best vineyards were on south-facing slopes that collected and held the sparse heat of the sun. I think that I memorized the names of the nine "Premier Cru" vineyards.
My friend told me not to get my hopes up. Chablis was limited, and the per-bottle prices were shocking. Being a student on the GI Bill, I could only dream.
I dreamed.
All this is to say that I was "hooked." I had hardly tasted a single bottle, but the idea of wine was sweet in my mind, even though the prospect of swallowing was daunting. The magic of the book was that it was a true "atlas." It took one on a virtual tour from country to country. And because the maps showed contours, the sights — though flat — suggested what walking the properties would feel like. Though I was still completely wine "illiterate," the road was clear and the journey had begun.
I still had several years left of school, and soon the relative "freedom" of academia opened up.
The next decade was filled with opportunity. Before it was over, I had made myself something of an expert (on paper and in theory, that is). Because of the low demand for wine (the industry was still recovering from Prohibition), the reasonable cost of land, and before the boom of the eighties, one could drink both European and domestic vintages at prices that today's consumers would swoon over. Very fine California Cabernets and Chardonnays could be had for as little as five dollars a bottle.
This made it possible for me and my friends to buy and taste like kings and queens.
Before 1980 came, I had taken trips to California and Europe, furthering my experience by visiting the wineries for free tastings without ever having to purchase. If this sounds like paradise to one who cares about the elixir, they are right.
By the close of my first decade, I could boast a decent "cellar," which grew quickly to a thousand bottles or so (yes, I can do the math). When folks would ask, "What are you going to do with that much?" I came to say (with a twinkle in my eye), "When one has a bottle with dinner each night, that is only a three-year supply."
One miraculous picture created a lifetime of pleasure and the ability to share a glass and reflect on the places I have visited and the wonderful wine people I have gotten to know.
They — who have toiled in the "dirt" — created precious memories for our (and their) benefit, out in the open air with the sights and sounds of numerous animals (neighbors) of the sky and forest.
In the last eighteen years, that gift of the soil and the sun overhead has been paired with a love of the table and the communion that happens there. We adore cooking and sharing and having a safe and comfortable environment in which to retreat from a world not so embracing. A place to grow and become closer. A place to have actual encounters. A place where the world is not so created by mankind but still imbued with the essence of where we came from.
It is a place of true "presence" — one full of human voices, not artificial sounds. It nourishes our bodies and souls.
Would that we could raise a glass to each and every one of you and find that we are not as different as it might seem.
Wine, when made by caring stewards of the earth, is one of the most natural beverages that exist. Each grape contains sugar and juice inside, and natural yeasts on its skin (which add enticing flavors and aromas). Fermentation occurs with no help from us — creating alcohol and carbon dioxide (which help stave off spoilage and keep it fresh). It is the stuff of magic.
Our ancestors have been making it, and praising it in song, for five thousand years.
- ✦ -
And so, I raise a glass of golden Chablis to you, my dear reader:
in salute to episode one in a "story of a life" and…
— For pictures that open doors
— To the friends who invite us through them and
— To the worlds we might discover on the other side
May you find many kindred spirits along the way — and may you know the joy of presence at the table that such gatherings bring.
Santé!
The Story of a Life
Taking Your Own Advice
How listening deeply changes everything
by Clay Hipp
Dear Reader,
For the last two Fridays, I have posted a two-part show on Words That Sing, my music blog.
The subject was "The Story of a Life"—featuring a group of songs that explore our past, present, and future in order to better appreciate how we, over time, "create" our own human existence.
My purpose was to show how the lyrics of songwriters might guide our thinking and perhaps engage in some reflection to see how things are going.
Now, I find myself thinking of little else.
Perhaps you have not (yet) bought into my idea that poetry in general, and song lyrics in particular, are where true "wisdom" lies. We can accumulate tons of knowledge from reading non-fiction, and much inspiration from novels and short stories, but "poetry speaks to us in mysterious ways unlike the others." I am no expert at literary criticism.
If you want to explore my bold statement, turn to the myriad writers who will be more than glad to offer their erudite opinions. My thoughts are instinctual.
Here is my point:
Words are all we have to attempt to express our ideas. More is not necessarily a good thing. Take any subject. Choose your favorite writing approach and style.
“A great poet can sum up a page of your verbiage in a single verse. ”
The great poetic voice "suggests," with enough spaces among the words, to engage your very mind, your consciousness, and to encourage reflection. The poet is not tempted to "prove" anything or presume to speak truth. That part is left to the creative reader.
My admiration for song is suggested therein, but with another huge enhancement.
Music is also a form of language.
A song delivers lyrics to the mind in yet another "mode" and, probably, to different parts of our brains. One need not "think" in order to receive the melodies and harmonies; they are simply delivered aurally.
If one is astute enough—or if we listen a second time—we begin to notice the interplay between the two.
This phenomenon is something we must spend more time on down the musical road.
For now, I will just say that experiencing the poetry this way can be a revelation to anyone who just "likes" songs. There is certainly nothing wrong with that.
I merely suggest that experiencing music and poetry this way is worth the effort.
Let me offer a corollary.
I recently read a book written by someone who spent a decade or so as a guard at a major museum of art. As he spent more and more time in the presence of beautiful paintings, he began to experience them in a new way.
They became not just whole pictures that one preferred or did not.
Rather, he began to notice the details of the artist’s brush strokes.
The parts took on a whole new level of interest.
Now I love beautiful art myself, but I never studied or practiced it. I never became "enlightened" enough to appreciate "modern" art as a genre.
But on a recent trip to Vienna, I walked through a thoroughly contemporary art gallery and, due to his tutelage, began to see some of the paintings with a different level of appreciation.
The parts became as wonderful as the whole.
That is what I am attempting to communicate about the art of song.
As a result of my trying to raise my listener's consciousness of the wonder of great songwriting, I myself began to experience it more deeply.
I wanted, with them, to understand the nature of our lives more deeply.
Allow me an example from the recent shows.
They were arranged in three parts:
the past (memory)
the present (choices)
the future (planning)
That is only a simple way of describing the experience.
The centerpiece—“Present”—suggested, through a handful of selections, that we, in essence, create ourselves.
I then tried to stimulate reflection by demonstrating our various modes of looking inward in order to see if changes might be beneficial.
As I experienced the program with them, it became clear to me that one of the songs pretty much summarized the whole message.
“We May Never Pass This Way Again” by Seals and Croft on their 1973 album Diamond Girl.
Here are the pertinent verses — please read them slowly and contemplatively.
“Life
So they say
Is but a game and they’d let it slip away
Love
Like the autumn sun
Should be dyin’
But it’s only just begun
Like the twilight in the road up ahead
They don’t see just where we’re goin’
And all the secrets in the universe
Whisper in our ears
All the years will come and go
Take us up
Always up
…
Dreams
So they say
Are for the fools and they let ‘em drift away
Peace
Like the silent dove
Should be flyin’
But it’s only just begun
…
So
I wanna laugh while the laughin’ is easy
I wanna cry if makes it worthwhile
I may never pass this way again”
For me, this covers the waterfront.
It can stand on its own in trying to say to you: "pay attention" to the important things.
For some unknown reason, I almost left it out until I heard it again.
One must experience the whole song to "hear" the artistry —the harmony, the instruments, the dynamics of the arrangement.
If you hear it, I dare you to try to get the chorus out of your head.
And then the message becomes clearer.
The song did for me what I wished for my listeners: don't be "late for your life" (Mary Chapin Carpenter). I urge you to take the time to listen and see for yourself.
A song to the wise…
A Footnote:
After retirement, when I started to try to write creatively (instead of professionally), I did not know where to start. I chose to begin with a kind of memoir (though I was not quite sure what that meant at the time). I called it simply "For my children and grandchildren." I thought that they might sometime want to read about my growing up years. It has grown as it proceeded.
What I had not realized was that doing this actually aided in remembering things that I had not thought of in years. I have not chosen yet to share it, though I think it worthy.
Looking back to that point six or so years ago (and rereading some of it), I have realized two things:
It is very "narrative" in style.
I got at least as much from the writing as I hope my readers will.
I believe since then that I have learned to be a better writer—moving from mere narrative storytelling to become more facile, thoughtful, and to become more aware of when it is good and when it needs improvement.
Also, a final piece of advice….
start writing, even if you do not think you can.
If nothing else, you will be creating a gift to yourself—telling the story of your life to the one most able to appreciate it, and understand what it has been, what it means now, and perhaps, what it might become.
— ✦—
I firmly believe that the story of your life is not something that happens to you. It is something you create, one moment of attention at a time.
Two Worlds
Transactional | Relational
Curiosity, commerce, and the power of human relationships
by Clay Hipp
“While conquest is a finite game, played for the pleasure of the win, curiosity is an infinite game, played for the pleasure of finding things out.”
Dear Reader,
When you read the title, what do you make of it?
Ponder it for a few moments more.
If nothing is coming, then perhaps it is simply that, for whatever reason, the critical words are not “speaking” to you.
So, if someone were to ask you:
“Are they the same thing (world), or is the title suggesting that they might be two separate concepts—two different worlds?”
Let’s explore that—perhaps an anecdote might help.
As I was studying, and later teaching, in a business environment, one of the fascinating subjects that I had never thought much about was the effect of cultural differences on the commercial world.
First it reminded me of the prevailing American image (in my growing up) of Japanese products—seemingly overnight—changing from cheap toys and little autos to finely engineered vehicles and highly desired stereo products.
I was somewhat amazed when my favorite, most desired, automobile was a Datsun 240Z. After serving in Vietnam, I bought two very large Sansui stereo speakers with twelve-inch “woofers” and carried them home as part of my personal baggage.
Hey, I was always a Chevy guy who played music on vinyl 45 and 33 rpm records on an American record changer from RCA Victor.
My first model train was a heavy metal set with only a few cars and enough track for a big oval, made in the early 1950s by Lionel. Within five years, my younger brother came home from a sleepover to report that his friend had a set with multiple cars, side buildings, and enough flexible track to make bridges and figure eights.
I asked him, “Is your friend’s family rich?”
At first I was impressed and jealous. But when I picked up the engine, it was plastic and easily flipped over. It was made by Tomytec, a Japanese company.
I kept my Lionel for years.
See where that early image of “cheapness” came from? My people were proud of buying American-made goods.
My 240Z changed everything.
Then, as I studied business marketing and international sales, I learned—and of course taught my students—that the aggressive manner of U.S. business managers might not serve them well when dealing with firms from other countries.
We read a case study told by an experienced American manager of international sales.
Early in his career, he flew to Japan to sell his company’s products. He had a tight schedule and an ambitious sales goal. He tried to make three or four stops a day, close deals quickly, and return home within a couple of days.
Short story?
On virtually every call, there was very courteous treatment, much bowing, and seemingly genuine interest in his product.
At the end of the hour he would say something like:
“So, we have a deal?”
In almost every case he was told:
“We should meet again tomorrow over lunch and learn more about each other and your company.”
As we learned from other similar scenarios, this was the cultural approach—leading slowly toward a true meeting of the minds.
I would ask my students:
“What do we learn from this account?”
My more astute students would eventually conclude that some cultures prefer engaging in commercial dealings only after gaining some understanding of the person and organization with whom they would be dealing with contractually.
One young man said what he took away was that learning the culture might benefit him and his company through higher sales and repeat business—even though it “cost” more in time.
Then one of my very fine and thoughtful female students (after the guys had gotten their say) went to the heart of the matter. She gently said:
“ I have always hated bargaining—haggling over price.”
(This “disinterested” person stopped short of voicing his bottom line: “Rather than thinking in terms of ‘paying the price,’ I would prefer ‘investing in the future.”)
My hope was always that my students might learn something of lasting value—professionally, of course, but perhaps personally as well.
So, have we moved any closer to answering my query?
Just so you know, this is not simply some academic linguistic puzzle we are exploring.
Almost every important issue in life involves human interaction.
What if we discover that some people instinctively prefer transactions over relationships? (Our earlier example above seems to mirror that conclusion— consider how the negotiations unfolded).
One of the ideas that triggered my thinking about this (the rest is too complicated to cover here) came from a TED talk by philosopher Michael Sandel titled Why We Should Not Trust Markets with Our Civic Life.
Sandel argues that markets do a reasonably good job allocating goods and services—but there are significant dangers in applying market logic to the important facets of our communal lives. He gives a number of good examples, and I recommend this as a primer.
His bottom line seems to be that some of our most pressing necessities should not be “commoditized,” and he proceeds to explain why.
If we return to my title, I am suggesting that we should spend time examining those parts of our lives that can be understood through the rational workings of our minds (the markets) and those that are better considered in terms of our relationships to others—and how we might make our lives together richer by considering the needs of others as well as our own.
Some would say that a good bit more compassion might help.
Please allow me to introduce a somewhat controversial perspective that may help us see, and perhaps better understand, what is being explored here.
In my formative years as a teacher in the world of business education, I experienced many revelatory moments. Here is one of them:
In her influential book In a Different Voice: Psychological Theory and Women’s Development (1982), psychologist Carol Gilligan challenged traditional raditional psychological theories, particularly Lawrence Kohlberg's stages of moral development, by arguing they were biased towards a male-centric "ethic of justice".
Gilligan proposed that women often develop an "ethic of care," emphasizing relationships, responsibility, and context, which was previously seen as a less mature form of moral reasoning but which she argued is a distinct and equally valid perspective.
The book was revolutionary because it gave voice to women's experiences and influencing gender studies, education, and political debate by highlighting the importance of relational morality.
A recent example can be found in a series of New York Times articles written in the mid-teens by Sheryl Sandberg and Adam Grant titled Women at Work.
Earlier, Sandburg had become known for challenging women in business to “lean in”, meaning, in part, to become more aggressive in order to get their voices heard.
Grant, a sociologist, found her work flawed, in effect, strongly implying that she was suggesting that to be successful women must mimic the styles of their male colleagues.
His motivation stemmed from his research and others that the workplace needed both approaches to make the organizations function most effectively if not immediately seeming to be as “efficient”.
Their splendid collaborations should be required reading for anyone negotiating the wild world of business and/or wanting to be a better leader (they include many excellent examples).
Some of the conclusions reached by researchers are stunning:
“When more women lead, performance improves. Start-ups led by women are more likely to succeed; innovative firms with more women in top management are more profitable; and companies with more gender diversity have more revenue, customers, market share and profits. A comprehensive analysis of 95 studies on gender differences showed that when it comes to leadership skills, although men are more confident, women are more competent.”
This idea of two ways of approaching life returns us to my earlier query.
For me personally, I see it reflected in our current geopolitical and governmental predicament.
Many of our leaders quite literally appear to prefer a transactional world in which one side must give something in return to reach lasting agreements.
Relationships seem to play a diminishing role. Power becomes the dominant currency.
(Perhaps even “complete surrender” is the quid pro quo).
My bottom line. We are at this moment destroying long-lasting international partnerships which have lasted despite tremendous national differences.
Why?
We once relied heavily on diplomacy—on the magnificent work of our Department of State and the quiet efforts of ambassadors.
At the same time we have made politically based differences to become worse than ever.
Division has become the preferred political mathematics of our time.
Which world would you rather live in?
I choose relationships every time.
While Sandberg seemed to suggest that women should get in touch with their masculine side, Grant appeared to argue that perhaps men ought to take research and experience into consideration and consider emulating the ways of those who speak “in a different voice.”
A wise speaker once said:
“The woman most in need of liberation is the woman inside every man.”
Maybe a bit to glib, but worth thinking about in a world that increasingly seems to want every problem resolved as a done deal.
— ✦ —
For me, a better world is one that begins when curiosity and human connection matters more than conquest.
Imagine
A meditation on war, memory, and the hope that imagination still matters.
by Clay Hipp
“There are no words, there are only words”
A great philosopher reportedly said this and it has become a mantra for me — a creative guiding light.
No matter how hard I try, many of my ideas simply refuse to translate.
Being new to this process, I must assume that I am not alone.
I reread my post from last Sunday. I, of course, “knew” what it “said”. But when I got to the sentence where I mentioned hymn-like songs, the example that jumped out was John Lennon’s “Imagine”.
In the solitude of my morning, alone in my house, I sat and listened to it for the first time in years.
I was never a fan of his “post-Beatles” years. It struck me quite differently than it had in the early ’70s.
I had recently returned from Vietnam, was entering graduate school, and was living in an apartment near the university. Just prior to starting classes, I was awaiting discharge at Fort Jackson and came home each day wearing “jungle fatigues”, feeling very weird to be among carefree undergraduates.
It was the autumn of 1970.
Anti-war sentiment was running high. Some evenings, the odor of tear gas wafted down my street as protests mounted. One day we woke up to news that the president’s office on campus had become “occupied”.
How was I supposed to feel?
I was so thankful that I had returned safely to “the World”, as we referred to it while serving in Southeast Asia. I was entering another phase of my education (I dearly loved going back to school).
We had very little; I was able to matriculate because of the GI Bill.
I could, for a while, continue to shop at the commissary at Ft. Jackson—cheap and good (amazing pork back ribs that I roasted and basted on my small grill).
And yet, and yet…
Rather than feeling proud, I knew that there were many who referred to me and other veterans as “baby killers”.
(I never carried a weapon; I was in supply management.)
I grew up in a small, isolated town. My father had been in WWII, served in the National Guard, and loved his country. I joined ROTC in college, but mostly to avoid being drafted (and it paid $100 a month so that I could eat late-night burgers and play golf—that was a lot of money in the sixties).
Had I been drafted, I could never have gone to Canada to escape my duty to serve. Young traditional southern boys just went when called.
At school, most of my friends were also veterans. We could play golf for free on a fine course at the fort. We talked about the fact that we never really understood why we had been sent to the conflict.
Yet we did—willingly.
And when we returned, we felt empty, or even worse.
When we turned on our radios, John Lennon sang “Imagine”, and Cat Stevens sang “Peace Train”. The sentiment was good and genuine, but it was hard to consider it “our music”.
What a thing it was then to listen to, and read the words of, “Imagine” again “for the first time.”
Each moment in which we have been placed has its time and place.
Campus protests during the Vietnam era
On the morning before my post Prayers and Hymns was published, we were greeted with the news that our country had bombed another nation (and probably assassinated its supreme leader).
Though we now call it Iran, that country used to be the center of the grand Persian Empire and a religion that called its god Allah and existed for centuries before our American home was even a gleam in the eyes of explorers such as Amerigo Vespucci.
How am I supposed to feel now?
Perhaps that is why Lennon’s words resonated so strongly with me that morning. They were written in another turbulent moment in history, yet they seem to ask the same question of us now.
Lennon wrote:
“Imagine there's no countries
It isn't hard to do
Nothing to kill or die for
And no religion too
Imagine all the people
Living life in peace…”
At this moment my imagination fails me.
Never in my wildest dreams could I (or any of us probably) conjure up a moment in which I could feel more shame at what we allowed ourselves to become.
Speaking of “dreamers”, he also said:
“Imagine all the people
Living life in peace
You may say I'm a dreamer
But I'm not the only one
I hope someday you'll join us
And the world will live as one.”
Some folks know me as a dreamer.
I just have to hope and believe that there are bigger dreamers than I, and that they will have the position and ability and vision to find a way to end this nightmare.
What “joy” could my fellow brothers in arms feel in the years to come as a result of their having “answered the call” of going for “God, Country, and my Baby,” as the song lyrics proclaimed?
I cannot help but think of John McCain—a true war hero, a prisoner in a foreign country, and a true patriot—who was later ridiculed publicly for that sacrifice.
Who are we, and what have we become?
At this moment my emotions are being almost overwhelmed by the reality with which we are faced as a country.
It is dire.
Consider this:
“…Your presidents of late have, unbelievably, failed to know, and to consider, the interests of the country and its people as a whole. Surely this can lead only to disaster. They may know policy and politics, but these, even to someone educated in them, are in the last analysis not much more than a game. Thus the politicians have transformed the life of a nation into a game they play continuously for their own edification.
But games are man-made abstractions, as weak as water, with none of the fullness, beauty, and consequence of life.
I think the model of a president should be a man who comes to you and says, ‘This is what I have seen, this is what I believe, this is how I live, and this is what I love.’ Surely you would know a man better for this than you would know a man possessed of a list crowded with numbers and littered with prostituted oaths.”
But…perhaps it is not only the politicians who must examine themselves.
“…read your Declaration and Constitution… these are lucid and perfect documents, and if you return to them as faithfully as they have served you since the beginning, they will not fail you.
You have neglected them and are unclear about the duties of a citizen and what comes by right. You seem to have forgotten the ancient battles in which you prevailed, and, more importantly, those that you merely survived.
You seem to have forgotten that your original principles… in a land that was carpeted with virgin stands of trees, and the principles by which you have lived—immaterial and bright, ever-enduring—grew up just as strong and fresh.
Return to them.”
—Mark Helprin, spoken by a character in his novel Freddy and Fredericka
The finger now seems to point back at us—or at the very least, to ask ourselves what kind of country, and what kind of people, we hope to be.
Perhaps, in the end, the real question is whether we can still imagine the world Lennon dreamed about in his song.
These lyrics from Harry Chapin’s “Remember When the Music” have become the closest thing I have to an answer:
“And I dream that something's coming and it's not
just in the windIt's more than just tomorrow, it's more than
where we've beenIt offers me a promise, it's tellin' me begin
I know we’re needin’ something worth believin’ in”
Games Versus Sports
The bowl games are behind us; the Super Bowl has just been played; the NCAA basketball championships are almost here; and spring training is just beginning.
It got me thinking about how much I used to enjoy this time of year.
How times change.
Some of my friends are aware that I have pretty much given up interest in following sporting events. There are several reasons that I find myself there.
In my forties, I suddenly felt the need to wean myself. I realized that being a fanatic about teams—and the nature of competition and winning and losing—was having an essential effect on my mental well-being.
I remember saying to myself, and then to others, that I did not like having my days—and the mornings after—controlled by a bunch of twenty-somethings running up and down courts and playing fields (my very state of mind was altered!).
It was especially bad when it involved a team to which I had some kind of loyalty. When they won, it was great. When they lost, the effect could last until noon or so the next day!
My first home remedy was to limit the number of games I watched live.
Toward the end of my agony, I began to give up one sport at a time. For those teams I could leave (such as the Braves), I started waiting to find out the result until the next day. That proved therapeutic—no matter the score, I had no power to change it.
Celebrate the victories. Let the losses slide off my sports back.
I still keep up with my baseball team, but the rest is virtually irrelevant.
Wow. Who says an “old dog” cannot change his ways?
But I now realize that I did not so much consciously give it all up. Rather, something drove me away.
I think it was the whole American thing about winning and losing and the seeming desire among us to assure that someone—or some team—comes out on top.
One prominent reason for losing my enthusiasm for most “sports” is that they have been infiltrated and overtaken by professionalism and greed.
I was drawn to, and grew up in, Little League and Pony League and then continued to play them all as an “amateur” in high school.
In my small town, we had so few students who were athletically inclined and reasonably capable that in order to compete with other schools almost everyone played everything.
The only leagues we had were with rival towns within fifty or so miles.
We got to sample all the games. We could not specialize or choose one to the exclusion of the rest. We were multi-sport athletes by necessity.
We had good teams, but when (and if) we made the playoffs we were often beaten by teams that came from larger towns that did have “specialists”—one-sport athletes who were position players.
As a consequence, we were often overmatched at some positions—especially in football and basketball. Taller, bigger and stronger, or faster.
Nevertheless, we became well-rounded as individuals and as players because of our reality.
I often think about—and appreciate it—when I read stories about young people who were “stars” growing up today and burn out early. (I was a decent pitcher without star quality, but unlike today I was never over-trained or burned out, nor someone who developed a debilitating injury ending their “career” as an athlete.)
As a result, we are only just now beginning to take action to lessen the chances of that happening.
Imagine the emotional injuries to young people who once “reached for the stars” but instead fell back to earth like Icarus.
Our worship of sports must bear some of that responsibility.
I played baseball from my earliest memories.
As a pitcher (without much of a fastball nor a variety of pitches), my job was to fool the batters.
Turnabout is fair play—I was never more than mediocre as a hitter.
I came to appreciate that baseball was essentially a hybrid game: a combination of individual skills played as a team effort.
Later in life I also appreciated the pace of the game and the fact that a variety of sizes and abilities could play it—compared to the speed and power needed for football and basketball.
My other lifelong pursuit has been golf.
It is the only game where the competition is between the individual self and topography—natural problems to solve.
It can be turned into a player-versus-player thing but need not be.
Certain board games have appealed, but only those that have captured my mind.
(Though chess has completely escaped me.)
I was an amateur.
My “love” of the games makes the reality of today’s professionally oriented culture even harder to accept.
I guess I might as well share one other societal concern.
The prominence of the TROPHY.
Have you ever stopped to consider the word “trophy”?
Probably not, because we all think we know what it means.
But do we?
It is obviously a thing awarded to those who excel in a sport. So it is a noun.
But if one sits and contemplates for just a little while, you realize that it is also an adjective: trophy spouses, trophy animals such as stags and bass, and so on.
So it is not just about sporting events, but about things that people hold up as an achievement of some sort.
Think a little more and you will certainly discover more that I have not identified.
A search of the web is extensive.
As an adjective, trophy describes people, objects, or properties that are highly desirable, rare, and acquired primarily as symbols of wealth, status, or success rather than for their utility.
It denotes an item or person meant to be displayed to evoke admiration.
Common uses include:
• Trophy wife/husband: a younger attractive spouse acquired by a wealthy or successful older person to display social status
• Trophy property/home: high-value real estate purchased as a status symbol
• Trophy asset: rare or prestigious investments
• Trophy event: a high-profile event attended for prestige
• Trophy fish: an exceptional catch kept as a souvenir of success
The term implies the subject is a “trophy,” a testament to the owner’s accomplishment and prestige.
So is this culturally based?
Are we, as a society, wrapped up in winning as a major part of our identity?
I am sorry to report that it seems so to this observer.
So what, you say.
Well, it feels as if we have diluted the term so much that it means almost nothing more than that.
Have you had a youngster who has played in any sports league?
Social “do-gooders” began years ago fighting the award of trophies.
How?
By suggesting that all of the players and team members be awarded a little trophy to avoid making someone “feel bad” about their abilities or their failure to achieve top honors.
Uh oh.
This is starting to get ugly.
In two paragraphs we have offended the winners and those who try to honor the “losers.”
So the hard-core defenders want trophies to go only to those who truly “deserve” it.
An example?
In the old days we had a wide range of bowl games after the college football season was over. After they were done, a poll was taken to choose the number one team in the country.
There always ensued huge regional arguments across the country that the voting was rigged or biased.
The obvious answer, to many, was to create a playoff system to assure that the real winner had been identified.
But we all know how that has gone.
Now we argue about the polls that determine which teams qualify for the playoff pairings.
How tired do we need to get about our consuming desire to win—to be number one?
Your guess is probably better than mine.
I cannot help but note the greatest evidence of the professionalizing of games and sports and the overwhelming obsession with winning.
We are now paying huge sums to “amateur” athletes to play a game for their colleges and universities.
Am I wrong to say that the love of the game has lost much of its meaning?
We will be poorer as a society when even that has been completely commoditized.
I am left with caring about and pursuing art and amateurism as my “balms in Gilead”.
But I am still glad that I have my very small MVP trophy from my senior year as a member of the baseball team.
And oh yes—I was far from the best athlete among some budding stars.
It warms my heart to know that my great coach, “Lefty” Johnson, found my efforts valuable.
Perhaps that is the real trophy.
Prayers & Hymns
Everybody is wondering what and where they all came from
Everybody is worrying 'bout
Where they're gonna go when the whole thing's done
But no one knows for certain and so it's all the same to me
I think I'll just let the mystery be
Some say once you're gone you're gone forever
And some say you're gonna come back
Some say you rest in the arms of the Savior if in sinful ways you lack
Some say that they're coming back in a garden
Bunch of carrots and little sweet peas
I think I'll just let the mystery be
Some say they're going to a place called glory
And I ain't saying it ain't a fact
But I've heard that I'm on the road to purgatory
And I don't like the sound of that
I believe in love and I live my life accordingly
But I choose to let the mystery be
—Iris Dement
Virtually every morning, I rise and spend an hour or so of quiet time in my darkened living room. It begins with two pieces of music: “The Prayer of St. Gregory” by Alan Hovhaness and “Hymn to a Blue Hour” by John Mackey. Over time, as I have listened more and more deeply, the melodies and harmonies have spoken to me—both the compositions themselves and their symbolic and mysterious messages. It has begun to fascinate and stimulate a part of me that I could not name. I had sat many mornings in silence and darkness, and I had chosen the music to allow my mind to remove or at least repress the intrusion of rational thought and distraction. It was serving its purpose well, and with time I began to explore ideas and inspirations that would not have appeared without that environment of peaceful contemplation.
One morning, I can say, with some trepidation, that I, figuratively, traveled from the present time and space back to the Big Bang of creation. I could see and feel the depth of the space through which I was traveling farther and farther from home. In the end, I did not actually witness the event but could sense that there was nothing else to see or visit. The “source,” the presence, was not evident. I am doing my best to speak of this lightly. I do not want to give anyone the sense that I am going off the deep end.
Now here is the ironic rub: I have not attended “church” in decades. Yet here I was, morning after morning, being inspired and sustained by two pieces of music which bore titles indicating that they were somehow related to prayer and hymn. It is quite possible that those words were being used in an easily understood and vernacular manner. Still, once recognized, it became impossible to ignore the possible implications. They have not yet become clear, or perhaps there are none to discover. But the question still remains. Did I choose them purely because I liked the music? Or did I subconsciously select them because of some kind of spiritual need (for want of a better word)?
I am aware that some who “meditate” are searching for meaning. The secular self yearns just as much as those who are part of a specific religious tradition. I grew up in a family of faithful parents from two traditions. I participated in their “rituals” as part of the family, but to my mind I never felt myself affiliated. I think I was always somewhat uncomfortable with—especially the liturgy. Eventually, I could no longer say the words because the beliefs were not mine, and it felt dishonest to openly vocalize them. I also know and respect people who pray regularly. Some use words of praise and ask for intervention into some aspect of their lives. For others, it is just “listening.”
And so, back to the early morning voyage through the stars and the darkness of deep space toward the center of it all.
Were the voices of the cosmos suggesting that perhaps I was missing something? If so, what was the message?
Since it all started in the dark before dawn, should I presume that the source of the vision was in the notes of those two songs?
I was vaguely aware of the medieval Pope St. Gregory but lacked any real knowledge of why he was a Catholic saint. (The prayer was attributed to him, but it is not clear that he actually wrote it.) I did a little work and learned that he had established the medieval papacy and developed the Gregorian chant. He was a prolific writer, a Doctor of the Church, and is considered a key figure in medieval spirituality, transforming his family’s wealth into monasteries and serving the poor during famine and plague. Now there was a reason to think a bit more about his prayer, if indeed it existed. The answer: oh yes, much to ponder.
So much for prayers—what about hymns? Well, there are certainly thousands of them in the Christian tradition. As the grandson of a Methodist pastor, I should note that John Wesley’s brother Charles is one of the best-known hymn writers. But are all hymns religious in nature? Online sources tend to agree that “the term ‘hymn’ is not exclusively limited to religious use. Hymns typically involve communal singing, theological messages, or praise aimed at a deity, spanning Christian, Jewish, Hindu, and ancient cultures. However, the concept extends to secular contexts as well.”
Well, there you go. Further reading reveals this: while historically and primarily praise songs for deities (God, gods, heroes), the concept extends to powerful, praise-filled songs about ideals or people, like “Imagine” or “Hallelujah,” but most commonly, a “hymn” refers to religious praise.
This leaves it open that I need not conclude that any message I might have received from my spatial journey was truly religious. Rather, I like to choose that whatever source “created” the known universe is simply a mystery that our minds can pursue alongside doctrinal conclusions reached by others about a singular, supreme “God” figure.
The great scientist, cosmologist Carl Sagan gave us his own perspective in a marvelous book entitled Pale Blue Dot. His book was inspired by an image (taken at his suggestion) by Voyager 1 on February 14, 1990. As the spacecraft departed our planetary neighborhood for the fringes of the solar system, it turned around for one last look at our home planet.
Voyager 1 was about 6.4 billion kilometers (4 billion miles) away and approximately 32 degrees above the ecliptic plane when it captured this portrait of our world. Caught in the center of scattered light rays (a result of taking the picture so close to the Sun), Earth appears as a tiny point of light, a crescent only 0.12 pixel in size.
Sagan’s thesis, in his own words, follows:
“Look again at that dot.
That's here.
That's home.
That's us.
On it everyone you love, everyone you know, everyone you ever heard of, every human being who ever was, and lived out their lives.
The aggregate of our joy and suffering, thousands of confident religions, ideologies, and economic doctrines, every hunter and forager, every hero and coward, every creator and destroyer of civilization, every king and peasant, every young couple in love, every mother and father, hopeful child, inventor and explorer, every teacher of morals, every corrupt politician, every "superstar," every "supreme leader", every saint and sinner in the history of our species lived there—on a mote of dust suspended in a sunbeam.
The Earth is a very small stage in a vast cosmic arena.
Think of the rivers of blood spilled by all those generals and emperors so that, in glory and triumph, they could become the momentary masters of a fraction of a dot.
Think of the endless cruelties visited by the inhabitants of one corner of this pixel on the scarcely distinguishable inhabitants of some other corner, how frequent their misunderstandings, how eager they are to kill one another, how fervent their hatreds.
Our posturings, our imagined self-importance, the delusion that we have some privileged position in the universe are challenged by this point of pale light. Our planet is a lonely speck in the great enveloping cosmic dark. In our obscurity, in all this vastness, there is no hint that help will come from elsewhere to save us from ourselves.
The Earth is the only world known so far to harbor life. There is nowhere else, at least in the near future, to which our species could migrate. Visit, yes. Settle, not yet. Like it or not, for the moment the Earth is where we make our stand.
It has been said that astronomy is a humbling and character-building experience. There is perhaps no better demonstration of the folly of human conceits than this distant image of our tiny world. To me, it underscores our responsibility to deal more kindly with one another, and to preserve and cherish the pale blue dot, the only home we've ever known.”
— Carl Sagan, Pale Blue Dot, 1994
Perhaps my vision that morning was a remembrance of having read Sagan’s book. Note that Sagan tells this to the reader without, to me, trying to prove anything. His words are so different from the conclusions of so many of us who have chosen to take a leap of faith to their “belief” in the truth of the words written over a period of five or so millennia by other human writers in so-called “scripture.” Infallible, literal words. If I may be so bold, I would suggest that writers such as Sagan are just as worthy of the title “prophet” as any of the sages named in the “holy” texts of other cultures, which are often conflicting. Truth, to me, must stand up to universal scrutiny and acceptance.
The market for religious belief has no monopoly on faith.
OK, no more theology for the moment. Back to music. It has not escaped my notice that Sagan’s “pale dot” was blue. My early morning hour is blue as well. Is that perhaps the missing link here that explains my “dream state”?
Are you aware of the origin of the term “blue hour”?
An online source explains it this way:
“The ‘blue hour’ (l’heure bleue) connotes a magical and fleeting transition between day and night (or dawn), characterized by a deep, tranquil blue light. It evokes feelings of peace, reflection, melancholy, and nostalgia, often representing an intimate, or ‘suspended,’ moment where the world feels calm and quiet.”
One of our finest observers of the natural world and host of an unequaled online site, The Marginalian, Maria Popova, brings us this vision:
“Blue, Rebecca Solnit wrote in one of humanity’s most beautiful reflections on our planet’s primary hue, is ‘the color of solitude and of desire, the color of there seen from here… the color of longing for the distances you never arrive in, for the blue world,’ a world of many blues—a pioneering 19th-century nomenclature of colors listed eleven kinds of blue, in hues as varied as the color of the flax-flower and the throat of the blue titmouse and the stamina of a certain species of anemone. Darwin took this guide with him on The Beagle in order to better describe what he saw. We name in order to see better and apprehend only what we know how to name, how to think about.
But despite Earth’s distinction as the Solar System’s ‘Pale Blue Dot,’ this planetary blueness is only a perceptual phenomenon arising from how our particular atmosphere, with its particular chemistry, absorbs and reflects light. Everything we behold—a ball, a bird, a planet—is the color we perceive it to be because of its insentient stubbornness toward the spectrum, because these are the wavelengths of light it refuses to absorb and instead reflects back.”
I am in deep water if I were to attempt to follow that.
But she and Sagan may just have made my point and answered my question. Where did my contemplative mind go during that most inspirational moment in memory? Or better yet, where did it take me? Please, if you will, help me here. Was my journey from the pale blue “dot-spot” to the very point of our origin more than metaphorical? It presents a great contrast to the creation stories of the world’s established religions.
If one wishes to have his faith story reach fruition as an affirmation of a life well lived, is existing in the “great mystery” enough? Or did the culmination of the journey end too soon? Was seeing at least a glimpse of the ultimate answer available, but not perceived? What more is being asked of human faith?
I have talked enough and will now let another human speak for me.
If I can claim a “spiritual” leader, the choice is simple: the monk and author Thomas Merton. He left us much too soon as he was moving towards finding a way to merge the faith journeys of Eastern and Western peoples. If one wishes to experience his thoughts on the individual “search for meaning,” you could do much worse than his New Seeds of Contemplation. In it, he seeks to awaken the dormant inner depths of the spirit so long neglected by Western man, to nurture a deeply contemplative and mystical dimension in our lives. It is much more accessible than it sounds. In essence, contemplation is his word for “prayer.”
A small sample to pique your interest:
“Every moment and every event in every man’s life on earth plants something in his soul. For just as the wind carries thousands of winged seeds, so each moment brings with it germs of spiritual vitality that come to rest imperceptibly in the minds and wills of men. Most of these unnumbered seeds perish and are lost, because men are not prepared to receive them: for such seeds as these cannot spring up anywhere except in the soil of freedom, spontaneity, and love.”
In the last few pages, he leaves the reader with this:
“The mask that each man wears may well be a disguise not only for that man’s inner self but for God, wandering as a pilgrim and exile in his own creation.
For the world and time are the dance of the Lord in emptiness. The silence of the spheres is the music of a wedding feast. The more we persist in misunderstanding the phenomena of life, the more we analyze them out into strange finalities and complex purposes of our own, the more we involve ourselves in sadness, absurdity, and despair. But it does not matter much, because no despair of ours can alter the reality of things, or stain the joy of the cosmic dance which is always there. Indeed, we are in the midst of it, for it beats in our very blood, whether we want it or not.
Yet the fact remains that we are invited to forget ourselves on purpose, cast our awful solemnity to the winds, and join in the general dance.”
So, I hope this heartfelt piece has spoken to you. As I reflect on my reason for creating this site, it has never been about becoming an authority (especially a model) about anything….
I share in order that you, the reader, might experience another person’s uncertain journey and know that they are not alone.
We can dance alone, but why?
Nothing I have encountered tells me that it is the only way—quite the contrary. Perhaps there is something to be discovered in setting aside the masks we create and wandering, for a time, as pilgrims, open to what might be revealed.
It is your life. Neither I nor anyone else can tell you what it means.
All I can say is that I am glad to be on this journey with you.
